Gartner Says Huawei Secured No. 2 Worldwide Smartphone Vendor Spot, Surpassing Apple in Second Quarter 2018

Worldwide Sales of Smartphones Grew 2 Percent in Second Quarter 2018

August 28, 2018 -- In the second quarter of 2018, Huawei surpassed Apple to secure the No. 2 worldwide smartphone vendor position for the first time ever, according to Gartner, Inc. Apple moved into the No. 3 spot. Overall, sales of smartphones to end users grew 2 percent in the second quarter of 2018 to reach 374 million units.

"Huawei’s smartphone sales grew 38.6 percent in the second quarter of 2018. Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. "Its investment into channels, brand building and positioning of the Honor devices helped drive sales. Huawei is shipping its Honor smartphones into 70 markets worldwide and is emerging as Huawei’s key growth driver."

Samsung maintained the No. 1 global smartphone vendor spot, declining 12.7 percent in the second quarter of 2018 (see Table 1). "Samsung faces slowing global smartphone demand and ever-growing competition from Chinese manufacturers," said Mr. Gupta. "The slowing demand for its flagship smartphones left Samsung with lower profitability. It now expects the Note 9 smartphone to revive growth."

Table 1

Worldwide Top 5 Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2Q18 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Apple’s performance was flat in the second quarter of 2018 (0.9 percent growth). "Minimal incremental value in Apple's current-generation flagship iPhones led to slower growth in the second quarter of 2018," said Mr. Gupta. “Demand for the iPhone X has started to slow down much earlier than when other new models were introduced.”

"Growing competition from Chinese brands and consumers’ greater expectations for phone value is putting immense pressure on Apple to deliver enhanced value on their premium iPhones to foster growth," added Mr. Gupta.

Xiaomi’s focus on expanding its portfolio and adopting a unified retail model by integrating offline and online retail is driving growth in a slowing global smartphone market. This helped Xiaomi secure the No. 4 spot in the global smartphone market in the second quarter of 2018.

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, Google’s Android further extended its lead over Apple’s iOS in the second quarter of 2018, securing 88 per cent market share to 11.9 percent share for iOS (see Table 2).

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q18 (Thousands of Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Gartner clients can read more in the Gartner report titled “Market Share Alert: Preliminary, Mobile Phones, Worldwide, 2Q18.”

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT), is the world's leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.

Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We're trusted as an objective resource and critical partner by more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.

To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit www.gartner.com.

 Back