On Saturday, Huawei announced that its mobile phone shipments have exceeded 100 million units in the first three quarters of 2017. This is a 19% increase year-on-year in terms of shipments, and further consolidates the company’s status as the world’s third largest (or second largest, depending on who you ask) smartphone manufacturer in the world.
According to Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business group, this growth has raised the company’s operating revenue by more than 30 percent from January to September.
The report in Xinhua also noted that the number of Huawei retail outlets has increased by 19% year-on-year to 42,300 worldwide. Mr. Chengdong said that Huawei has planned to launch medium and high-end products to expand its global market and upgrade its brand image. He also said that that with over 10,000 Huawei employees globally working for research and development, the company expected to win more high-end consumers, as there is more profit in the high-end sector.”
The company’s focus on acquiring high-end customers is not new. While Xiaomi has targeted majorly the budget and mid-range segment via online sales, and Oppo and Vivo have focused solely on offline retail with heavy retailer margins and incentives, Huawei on the other hand has focused on taking the fight to Samsung and Apple.
In February 2016, Huawei’s CEO said that the company’s mission is to become the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer within the next five years. Although the Chinese giant has faced its share of issues in entering the North American market, its entry in Europe has been far more successful. The success of the Mate series as phablets with great battery life excellent real-world performance as well as the increasing adoption of the mainstream P series has meant that Huawei is now taken seriously by the West unlike its competitors Xiaomi and BBK Electronics, which owns Oppo and Vivo.
In other markets such as India, Huawei has faced different issues. Indian consumers prefer budget and mid-range smartphones to expensive flagships, and the company has accordingly let its online Honor brand take the stage to sell aggressively-priced smartphones. As such, the Huawei-branded mainstream P series and Mate series are still not available in India.
On the other hand, Honor is slowly but surely establishing itself as a strong player both in the mid-range smartphone market and the affordable flagship smartphone market in India with recent releases such as the Honor 8 Pro and the Honor 9i.
Domestically, the company continues to enjoy number one status as it remains the largest smartphone manufacturer in China, ahead of Oppo, Vivo, Apple and Xiaomi. Globally, IDC has estimated that Huawei may soon overtake Apple to become the world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer.
Source: Xinhua
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