Huawei has overtaken Microsoft to become the third biggest mobile phone vendor in the world. The 30.6 million mobile phone units the Chinese device maker shipped in Q2 2015 were more than enough to eclipse Microsoft’s 27.8 million units and earn it 7% market share of the global mobile phone market while the latter settled for fourth place with a 6% hold of the market.
While it may be until later this year when we see new high end smartphones from Microsoft that can compete in the same range as the top two’s Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6, Huawei has being doing well with yesteryear flagship smartphones and a strong mid-range Honor lineup in its home market and abroad.
This comes at a time when the mobile phone market experienced a sluggish quarter as far as shipments go.
While smartphone shipments are generally expected to still be on the rise this year, when coupled with other handsets like feature phones, shipments of mobile phones grew painfully slow in Q 2015. According to new data released by Strategy Analytics, shipments only rose by 2% quarter over quarter. There were 428 million mobile phones shipped in Q2 2014 compared to the 434.6 million units that were shipped over a similar period this year.
Samsung and Apple still lead the pack while China’s rising star, Xiaomi, rounds up the top 5 mobile phone vendors in the world. With the three known more for their smartphones than feature phones (which Apple has never made anyway), it is little surprise that out of every 10 mobile phones sold in Q2 2015, only 2 were not smartphones. Despite a costly dip in shipments in the same period compared to last year, Samsung still managed to top the list having shipped 89 million mobile phones.
With the numbers being largely driven by smartphones, it is easy to understand why growth slowed down. The smartphone market has saturated in places like China, North America and Europe that previously used to drive growth. This has forced smartphone makers to take keen interest in other emerging markets. Huawei just got the nod from the authorities in India to manufacture its devices there while Samsung is expected a new budget smartphone for that market in a few hours.
