Huawei has now dropped out of the top five in its home market
Kris Carlon / Android Authority
TL; DR
- According to a market share report for the second quarter of 2021, Huawei dropped out of the top 5 in China.
- However, Honor has climbed into the top 5, marking its first appearance since splitting up with Huawei.
A long-standing U.S. trade ban means Huawei has dropped out of the top 5 of a threat to Samsung and a number two in terms of world market share. The Chinese manufacturer has been successful in its home market the longest, but it looks like tough times are afoot here too.
The IDC has published its Q2 2021 market share report for China (h / t: GSMArena) and noted that Huawei is no longer in the top 5 players in its home country. Instead, the company is now classified in the “Other” category.
This is a pretty drastic, if not surprising, twist given that Huawei was solid number two prior to the trade ban and had overtaken Apple in second place. US sanctions immediately hardened outside of China due to the lack of support from Google, but was initially able to rely on its home market to keep supplies going. However, this latest news suggests that the sanctions are seriously affecting Huawei’s supply chain and sales in both global and Chinese markets.
Related: Huawei Buying Guide – Everything You Need To Know
Huawei will launch its P50 line of phones tomorrow (July 29th), but we’ll have to wait and see if the manufacturer has enough components in stock to deliver many units. Perhaps the manufacturer’s biggest concern is the supply of in-house Kirin 9000 chipsets, as chipmaker TSMC only produced a small number of these chips before the US banned cooperation with Huawei. However, several rumors have pointed to the possibility that Qualcomm is in some way providing 4G chipsets to the manufacturer.
Vivo was otherwise the top performer in the quarter, with a market share of 23.8% or 18.6 million units sold in China. The BBK colleague Oppo took second place with a 21.1% market share or 16.5 million units sold. Xiaomi rounded off the top 3 with 17.2% of the market (13.4 million units sold).
Apple and the newly independent Honor ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, with market shares of 10.9% and 8.9%, respectively. We are pleased that Honor is getting back on its feet for the time being after the spin-off from Huawei and will also hold its first global launch after Huawei next month. So all eyes will be on the company to see if it can regain market share lost from Huawei.
