Even with everything against it, Huawei managed to surpass Samsung as the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world last April , and despite swimming against the current, it is the first time in history that Huawei achieves such a milestone.
To make this possible, Samsung had a temporary slowdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, market analyst Counterpoint Research said. The company heavily depends on markets such as India, the United States, Latin America, and Europe as its main markets, but due to the closure of physical stores and the sharp decline in demand for smartphones, Samsung has suffered a lot. In April, the Korean tech giant had a 17% market share, while Huawei scored 19%.
That is because in April, the Chinese market was already recovering from COVID-19 and Huawei is doing exceptionally well in its home country. Even after all the obstacles the company had to overcome, such as its terminals losing access to Google services, the Chinese consumer was driving Huawei’s sales, thus offsetting the decline in sales in other markets where Huawei is losing ground due to the lack of these services that it is trying to compensate with its own ecosystem.
It is expected that in the coming months Samsung will recover its market position due to the opening of physical stores and the recovery of the markets as the restrictions linked to the coronavirus are relaxing.
