Samsung, Huawei Grow in Smartphone Sales; Apple, Xiaomi Drop

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Gartner released its report on global smartphone sales in the third quarter of 2019 this week. The survey shows that the sector decelerated slightly in the period, but that in spite of that, two companies had reasons to celebrate: Samsung and, mainly, Huawei.

The two companies remained as market leaders and are the only ones presenting expressive growth in mobile sales in comparison with the third quarter of 2018.

Huawei‘s performance is quite impressive. Despite facing the embargo imposed by the United States government, the company sold 65.8 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2019 against 52.2 million recorded in the same period last year.

Apple, Xiaomi, and Oppo appear in the sequence. The latter had only a slight growth in sales. The first two sold less, particularly Apple: the company sold 45.7 million iPhones in the third quarter of 2018; a year later, this number stood at 40.8 million.

According to Gartner, consumer behavior has changed. Most users are preferring intermediate smartphones to more advanced models because of cost-effectiveness: mid-level options deliver a good amount of features and cost less.

This has led companies like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo to strengthen their basic and intermediate lines. It worked, but the performance could have been higher. The problem is that, according to Gartner, the wait for the expansion of 5G networks also helps explain the decision of many consumers to defer the purchase of a new smartphone.

In the case of Huawei, the increase of almost 25 percent in sales is mainly due to its home: in China, the company sold just over 40 million mobile phones in the third quarter.

To some extent, the company’s investment in sub-brands such as Honor and Nova helped, as well as a certain amount of patriotism: with the US embargo, Huawei’s partners started to promote the brand’s smartphones in China more intensively, making the company more competitive domestically.

On the other hand, Samsung recorded a lower growth (7.8 percent) compared to Huawei but preserved its isolated leadership of the market with almost 80 million devices sold in the period. By the looks of it, launching a bunch of Galaxy As in 2019 was an accurate strategy.

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