A new claim from Huawei suggests the company overtook Apple in terms of shipments last December. The Chinese consumer electronics maker has made no secret of its plans to become the largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide, with just Samsung and Apple ahead of it in terms of shipments. When this goal was initially announced, the CEO of Huawei set out a two-year time frame for realizing it and may actually be ahead of schedule with its ambitions.
Huawei India Director of Product Centre, Allen Wang, claimed that the company “overtook Apple in global sales volume share in December.” To be more specific, Huawei reportedly held a 13.2-percent share of the market, while Apple trailed every so slightly behind with 12 percent. Now, this data only pertains to December, so the company still has quite a way to go before it overtakes Apple’s global shipments. It is interesting, though, that the company managed to overtake Apple during the last holiday season. December tends to be a very important month due to the increase in sales, so the fact that Huawei was more popular worldwide than Apple during this period is certainly a good sign for the Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Obviously, without Apple and Huawei’s exact shipment numbers for December, there is no way to guarantee that these numbers are completely accurate. Nonetheless, they are certainly a step in the right direction and Huawei is sure to be pleased with its progress.
Huawei shipped close to 140 million units in 2016 which, although a significant improvement, was still way behind Apple’s 215.4 million units. With the Chinese company consistently improving, though, it’ll be interesting to see how the OEM fares against Apple on a global scale across the entire year, as well as Samsung which currently sits at number two in terms of worldwide shipments. Either way, beating Apple during the holiday season is definitely an accomplishment and another positive sign for Huawei. It remains to be seen what position Huawei will occupy in terms of global smartphone shipments by the end of the year and if the company is on track to reach its goal of becoming the number one global manufacturer worldwide by the end of 2018.