According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Apple has fallen from its #2 spot on the ladder for global smartphone sales for the months of June and July. Who overtook them? Well, if you’ve been keeping tabs, you would already know that for the first time ever, Chinese smartphone giant Huawei has edged past Apple for the first time, pushing Cupertino down to 3rd place.
Now, before you put too much weight on this, there are a few things you should know. Firstly, we’re literally days away from Apple’s massive iPhone announcement where the company has been rumoured to drop a huge bomb with their upcoming iPhone 8, so it makes sense that sales for older models have begun slowing down. As you can probably tell from the data, Apple’s sales trajectory explodes upwards in September because that’s when the new iPhones drop so Huawei’s lead will probably be momentary at best.
That said, things are looking really good for the Chinese smartphone company too as they’ve been riding on an upward trend that looks likely to continue with the company’s upcoming Huawei Mate 10 flagship phablet. However, Counterpoint’s research director Peter Richardson does note that Huawei has a weak presence in the South Asian, Indian and North American markets which limit Huawei’s potential to grab a sustainable second place above Apple.
It is also worth noting that despite this milestone, none of Huawei’s smartphones have broken into the top 10 rankings in individual model sales due to a “multiple SKU portfolio” that, senior analyst Pavel Naiya says, lacks a “true hero device”.
Nevertheless, this is still a big achievement for Huawei and Counterpoint also indicates that the Chinese company’s August sales figures look strong so it’s likely that Huawei can maintain this lead for at least one more month.
