Huawei temporarily edged past Samsung to become largest smartphone brand

Samsung has been the world’s largest smartphone brand in the world for years now, at least in terms of units sold. Huawei has been eyeing the number one position, and it aimed to defeat the South Korean firm in 2020. However, those dreams were killed when the US applied trade sanctions against Huawei. Despite trade sanctions, it is being reported that Huawei temporarily dethroned Samsung and became the world’s largest smartphone maker.

According to the latest data from market research firm Counterpoint Research, Huawei edged past Samsung in April 2020 to grab a 19% share of the global smartphone market. Huawei’s market share rose due to its efforts to increase the market share in China after the US trade ban. Samsung’s market share in the same month dipped to around 17% due to coronavirus lockdowns in its key markets such as India, Latin America, parts of Europe, and the US. This also affected the sales of the Galaxy S20 series.

While improved market share is a welcome change for Huawei, the company is still expecting a 20% drop in sales in 2020 due to the US trade ban and the lack of Google Mobile Services on its phones. Although the company has developed its own app store and ecosystem, not many people outside of China would prefer phones that lack the Google Play Store and other Google services such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Maps, and YouTube.

Moreover, the US has also cut off Huawei from TSMC’s chip manufacturing services, so the Chinese smartphone maker will face a lot of trouble in getting high-end chips for its flagship smartphones this year unless Samsung comes to the rescue. As such, Huawei won’t likely be able to defeat Samsung in the long run unless the US lifts the trade ban. Meanwhile, Samsung improved its smartphone ASP (average selling price) and maintained its number two position in the premium smartphone segment.