Huawei outperformed Apple in 2019 despite the US ban

The 2019 competition between “Huawei” and “Apple” ended in the best-selling smartphone race for the Chinese company.

Huawei outperformed Apple for the first time, becoming the second best-selling smartphone maker in 2019.

But interestingly enough, the Chinese company managed to remove Apple from second place in the same year in which it was subject to major trade obstacles due to the US embargo.

The Chinese company was able to sell about 240.5 million phones in 2019, compared to 197.4 million phones for Apple, according to Strategy Analytics.

Samsung adheres to the first position in years, a marked difference from the second position, as it sold more than 295 million phones in 2019.

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Huawei settled the race despite the US ban

The Chinese telecom company remains on the blacklist threatening national security in the United States.

The resolution , which the United States adopted in May / May last to prevent the Chinese company from dealing with counterparts Americans affecting the ability of Huawei to buy software, hardware and other services made in the United States and prevent them from installing applications and services , ” Google” on the new organs, and this In turn, reduces its attractiveness outside China.

U.S. sanctions actually helped boost Huawei sales in China on the back of national consumer purchases, along with the company’s strong marketing as well.

The reason for this is that the enormity of the Chinese market was sufficient to reduce the impact of this ban, as Huawei was the main force in its home country, and China accounted for 60 percent of Huawei’s sales, which allowed its shipments worldwide to increase by 17 percent in 2019, according to the ” Counter Point. ”

Huawei has been tracking the American company slowly, in 2017, the Chinese company surpassed Apple in selling more smartphones in June and July only.

The following year, Huawei sold more phones than Apple in the second quarter of 2018. In 2019, the Chinese company surpassed Apple in selling more phones throughout the entire year.

Huawei is unlikely to retreat behind Apple again anytime soon, due to the fact that Apple is losing its strength against domestic competitors in China for years.

Apple sells expensive phones to wealthy customers, and this does not allow them to search for a lot of markets, because local competitors in China such as Huawei and Xiaomi offer a larger range of phones at different rates.

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Louis Liu, an analyst at Canalis, said that by launching three varieties of the iPhone 11 last year – the lowest-cost issue was 3,999 yuan ($ 578) – Apple was able to boost China sales in the short term.

He continued, “But in the long term, Huawei will continue to dominate the Chinese market across the price sectors,” according to CNN.

According to IDC data, the international data network, most of the sales of Apple’s Chinese competitors are cheap smartphones – about 90 percent of Huawei phones sold in China during the 12 months ended last September were priced at less than $ 600 .

Huawei has been particularly successful in winning consumers who want to pay between $ 600 and $ 800 for a smartphone, a market that Apple abandoned when it began pricing iPhones above that range.

However, the U.S. ban still had an impact on Huawei, as some estimates expected 2019 to be the year the Chinese company overtook Samsung to be the number one smartphone, but this challenge was not finally met.

The ban on exporting US technology products to Huawei has now been extended three times in 90-day periods, and the next deadline is February 17, 2020.

Outside of China, Huawei is trying to continue selling its old devices, but as the competitor grows, the proposed value is gradually being undermined, and while the Chinese company is working on its own operating system, it will be nearly impossible to compete with Android anywhere outside of China.

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Apple only wins in the last quarter

Despite losing second place to 2019 as a whole, Apple did have strong quarterly performance in the last quarter of last year, as usual for the company.

The American company achieved a net profit of $ 22.2 billion, a record level, by supporting the increase in iPhone sales revenue to $ 55.9 billion during the three months ended last December, compared to $ 51.98 billion during the same period in the previous year.

Apple managed to outpace Samsung and Huawei to become bestsellers in the last quarter of last year, as sales were driven by the iPhone 11 price cuts in particular and by stronger demand in Asia and North America.

Apple’s sales increased by about 7 percent in the fourth quarter of last year to 70.7 million units, and this was the company’s best quarterly growth performance since 2015.

Samsung shipped 68.8 million smartphones worldwide in the last quarter of 2019, and Huawei sold 56 million phones during the same period.

5G Race

There is at least one area that Apple has yet to compete with, and that will surely be crucial to its long-term success in China and elsewhere, is the fifth generation of high-speed wireless networks.

Huawei has already launched several models of the fifth generation in China, while the iPhone 5G will not be operational until September, which creates a huge gap for Huawei that enables it to attract more consumers.

In general, “Strategy Analytics” company noted in a report that the emergence of the fifth generation network last year allowed smart phone makers to gain attention by launching devices capable of supporting ” 5G “.

It expected smartphones with a 5G network to grow, accounting for about 18 percent of total global smartphone shipments in 2020, up from 1 percent in 2019.

In the end, despite the individual gains of the tech and communication giants, the year 2020 may be full of challenges for the entire industry as the United States’ trade wars and China and the world fear of the Corona virus have potential impacts on supply chains.