Huawei beats Apple by selling around 60 million phones in Q1 2019

The Chinese tech giant Huawei has secured the second spot in the smartphone market, beating Apple in the first quarter of this year. According to the data shared by the Chinese-owned International Data Corporation, Huawei outsold Apple’s iPhones seizing the Cupertino giant’s second place in 2019.

The data shared by the Chinese company reveals that a total of 310.8 million smartphones were shipped worldwide in the first three months of 2019, which is a 6.6% decline as compared to the same period in 2018. This makes it the sixth consecutive quarter of decline for global smartphone shipments.

IDC data shows that apart from Huawei‘s strong growth the smartphone shipments will see another low year in 2019. Ryan Reith, the director of IDC’s mobile device program said, “The overall smartphone market continues to be challenged in almost all areas, yet Huawei was able to grow shipments by 50%. It is becoming increasingly clear that Huawei is laser-focused on growing its stature in the world of mobile devices, with smartphones being its lead horse”.

Huawei managed to secure a 50.3% growth to ship 59.1 million smartphones, putting the Chinese company within striking distance of Samsung which is currently dominating the smartphone market worldwide.

Meanwhile, Samsung and Apple both saw a decline in the smartphone shipment. Samsung saw an 8.1% drop in smartphone shipments to 71.9 million in the first quarter and Apple with a challenging first quarter, saw iPhone shipments dropping by a 30.2% in 2019.

The overall downfall in the high-end smartphone market shows that people are waiting longer to change their devices because the smartphone giants are not offering any captivating innovation to the users. IDC research manager Anthony Scarsella said, “Consumers continue to hold on to their phones longer than before as newer higher priced models offer little incentive to shell out top dollar to upgrade”.

Moreover, the pending arrival of 5G smartphones may also be a reason why consumers are holding on to their old smartphones instead of buying new ones.