14 DAY TRIAL // The notch has become an essential part of the latest-generation smartphones, and aside from Samsung, pretty much all major manufacturers have embraced it.
According to new data published by Sigmaintell Consulting, via Digitimes, Huawei is leading the market of smartphones with notches, accounting for 25.4 million units out of the total 86.1 million units sold by the world’s top six vendors.
Apple’s iPhone X, which is the first iPhone ever coming with a notch, is only the second with 20.7 million units sold in the first half of 2018, while Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi come next. Samsung has managed to resist the notch craze and hasn’t yet launched a phone with a such a design tweak.
Overall, smartphone sales dropped 3.3 percent to 604 million units, and the cited source corroborates information that reached the web earlier this year and revealing that Huawei surpassed Apple to become the world’s second largest phone maker.
Notches coming to all iPhones this year
Apple looks set to expand the adoption of the notch to all new iPhone models, and this year’s generation will include three different devices coming with this display feature.
Apple will unveil an iPhone X successor, an iPhone X Plus, and an all-new iPhone with a 6.1-inch screen, and according to people familiar with its plans, all three models will feature a notch at the top of the display. This means Apple will give up on the home button on all iPhones, instead betting big on facial recognition.
What will be interesting to watch is Samsung’s approach towards new-generation phone design, as the South Korean firm has been one of the biggest critics of Apple’s iPhone notch. Samsung has used the notch as one of the motifs to make fun of its rival in a series of ads, and adopting it on a future model may have a big impact on its image in the fight against Apple.