For the first time in recent history, Xiaomi has overtaken Huawei to become the third largest smartphone maker (in terms of shipment volume) in February’s global smartphone shipment according to Strategy Analytics.
In February, Xiaomi had shipped approximately 6 million smartphones globally while Huawei on the other hand, had managed to ship only 5.5 million smartphones during the same period of time.
At current stage, it’s too early to speculate whether the dip in Huawei’s smartphone shipment was due to the effect of the ongoing US trade ban.
This is because all other major smartphone OEMs had also seen their smartphone shipments plunged in February as a result of the recent coronavirus outbreak across the globe.
In fact, Strategy Analytics noted that the global smartphone shipments had registered the biggest year-over-year decline of 38% compared to the same period last year.
China, being the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, has registered one of the greatest fall in domestic smartphone consumption in recent months due to the large-scale closure of retail shops and assembly plants in China.
Since Huawei controls the largest smartphone market share in the Chinese market (as of 2019), it is inevitable that the company was hit the hardest by the coronovirus outbreak.
The impact is further compounded by the fact that Huawei relies even more heavily in the Chinese market ever since the US trade ban came into effect.
As for Xiaomi, it’s growing presence in other major markets including India could have helped the company to cushion the impact of the plummeting smartphone sale.
As expected, Samsung and Apple have continued to maintain the first and second positions respectively in the global smartphone market.
