China smartphone market: Huawei ships 28.5 million

Smartphone shipments in China rose 8 percent to above 100 million in Q2 2018 as against 22 percent drop in Q1 2018 to 91 million, Canalys said.

Huawei including Honor grew its smartphone market share to a record 27 percent. Huawei achieved the biggest share for any smartphone vendor in China since Q2 2011, boosting revenue opportunities for channel partners.

Huawei also broke the record for the greatest number of shipments into the channel by any vendor, at 28.5 million units.

Oppo is the second leading smartphone maker in China. Vivo is the third largest smartphone brand in China.
Smartphone market share of Xiaomi and Apple fell, holding onto their respective fourth and fifth places.

The top five smartphone vendors now account for 90 percent of shipments, against 73 percent a year ago.

Huawei’s Honor sub-brand accounted for 55 percent of its shipments in Q2 2018 against 33 percent a year ago.

“Honor is now the largest smartphone brand in the Huawei Consumer Business Group,” said Canalys Analyst Mo Jia.

“Honor’s independent operation and increasing strength will pose a dilemma for the other Huawei sub-brands, Mate, P and Nova, which risk losing resources to Honor in the common goal to meet Huawei’s global target of 200 million smartphone sold in 2018,” Mo Jia said in a statement.

Huawei’s self-branded smartphones accounted for 45 percent of total sell-in to China, with about half of those being Nova models.