Huawei Aims To Surpass Apple And Samsung, The Biggest Smartphone Brand By 2020

On Thursday, Huawei's Head of Mobile Service Richard Yu has claimed that the Chinese tech giant is heading to the title of the largest brand in the smartphone market. In 2018, Huawei was the third biggest smartphone manufacturers in term of sales. In overall, its shipment is just slightly behind Apple and Samsung, thanks to the rapid growth of mid-range. It’s expecting to take over the role of Samsung and Apple and become the No.1 brand by 2020.

The interview between Yu and media happened after the launch of Huawei P30 on Thursday. The Huawei P30 models now are available in China but soon arrive in other global markets such as India in the coming months. In China, the P30 comes with a starting price of $594 (roughly Rs 41,100). It’s clearly much lower than the phone’s price in some European markets, which stands at $900 (roughly Rs 62,300).

If combining the sales of Huawei and the sub-brand Honor, it will likely be the biggest smartphone sales in the world this year. Richard Yu also said that Honor's goal is to become the second-largest domestic brand, simultaneously the fourth in the world as well. In the meantime, two brands are aiming to lead the smartphone market in the future.

As per Yu’s speech, Huawei's budget for R&D segment has reached about $6 billion per year, far exceeding other Chinese brands. Huawei posted revenue of $107 billion for the year, surpassing the $100 billion mark for the first time, in spite of political headwinds in some Western markets.

Talking about the recent disputes between Huawei and the US government, Yu claimed the United States’ ban on Huawei seemingly looks like an advertisement while more users are eyeing on the Chinese brand. The United States and some of its allies have performed banning laws to stop Huawei from selling telecom equipment for months. It’s considered as prevention of Huawei’s 5G development from Western countries.