14 DAY TRIAL // Huawei’s legal problems in the United States have made it a lot harder for the Chinese tech behemoth to keep its sales at record levels, so in the last 12 months or so, the company has been struggling with declining shipments pretty much all over the world.
Including in the domestic market, that is, as new data shared by Counterpoint indicates not only that Huawei lost the leading place, but it keeps losing ground even in China.
At this point, Vivo is the number one phone maker in China with 24 percent market share in the first quarter of 2021, followed by OPPO with 23 percent. Huawei is only third with 16 percent, but both Xiaomi and Apple and Apple are pretty close with 15% and 13%, respectively.
“The quarter marked the inevitable succession of Huawei’s leadership, as the beleaguered handset maker struggled to maintain shipments. vivo and OPPO emerged as clear leaders, accounting for nearly half of all smartphones shipped during the period,” Counterpoint explains.
The rise of 5G
Needless to say, the investments in 5G appears to be the thing that brings home the bacon right now, so all companies focusing heavily on such devices are the ones getting bigger sales.
Counterpoint analyst Senior Analyst Yang Wang says the next leader in terms of sales in China is likely to be the company that manages to benefit the most from Huawei’s decline while also offering latest-generation 5G devices to customers.
“With close to three quarters of its portfolio now made up of 5G devices focused on strong camera capabilities and a great balance of specs vs cost, vivo is capitalizing on Huawei’s weakness and expanding to take share in the domestic premium segment,” he said.
One problem, however, could be the lack of chips, as Chinese phone makers could eventually be affected as well.