Huawei premium smartphone shipments surge, as Apple continues to lead segment in China
07 December, 2024
Huawei Technologies gained more ground in mainland China's high-end smartphone segment in the third quarter, narrowing the gap with US rival Apple, which still leads that handset category, the latest data from research firm Canalys showed.
Huawei's premium smartphone shipments in China surged 34% in Q3 2024, securing a 33% market share, while Apple's declined 5% but led with 52%. Huawei shipped 1.12M foldables, up 97%, as global high-end smartphone sales grew 15%.
Shenzhen-based Huawei's domestic shipments of premium-priced smartphones - handsets that cost more than US$600 - surged 34 per cent in the September quarter from a year earlier, resulting in a 33 per cent share, according to a report released by Canalys on Friday.
While Apple saw its iPhone shipments on the mainland decline 5 per cent in the same period, the US tech giant continued to lead domestic premium handset sales with a 52 per cent share. Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
Huawei's strong performance in the high-end segment reflects the continued momentum from the firm' successful comeback last year to the premium 5G handset segment in the world's biggest smartphone market, which is on track to record its first sales growth in five years in 2024.
From July to September, Huawei also shipped a total of 1.12 million foldable handsets, up 97 per cent from a year ago, cementing its status as the bestselling foldable brand on the mainland, ahead of rivals such as Honor, Vivo, Xiaomi and Samsung Electronics, according to a November report from research firm CINNO.
Strong demand for Huawei's attention-grabbing Mate XT trifold smartphone - which costs 19,999 yuan (US$2,800) for the 256-gigabyte model and remains in tight supply - in September prompted many scalpers in Shenzhen to raise its price from 60,000 yuan to 70,000 yuan.
By contrast, the slight decline in Apple's third-quarter shipments on the mainland shows weakening iPhone sales, which have been exacerbated by the uncertainty around the local launch of Apple Intelligence.
Demand for artificial intelligence-equipped handsets enabled the high-end smartphone segment to record 15 per cent global growth in the third quarter, according to Canalys.
Still, Apple accounted for half of the top 10 bestselling smartphone models in China in the third quarter, led by the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Canalys data showed. In the same period Huawei's Pura 70 series ranked sixth in shipments among all high-end smartphone models on the mainland.
Among Canalys' top-ranked premium handset vendors on the mainland last quarter, Honor's 5 per cent share and the 3 per cent share of both Xiaomi and Samsung ranked behind Apple and Huawei.
Globally, Apple dominated the world's high-end smartphone segment with a 63 per cent share, as the company's shipments grew 10 per cent worldwide, according to Canalys. That strong showing was helped by the availability of Apple Intelligence in the iPhone 16 series, which was launched in September.
Samsung took the No 2 spot with a 21 per cent global market share in the third quarter, while Huawei ranked third with an 8 per cent share, according to Canalys.
The global smartphone market is forecast to grow 6 per cent this year on overall shipment of 1.22 billion units, according to Canalys. It cautioned that growth in this segment beyond 2024 will slow to 1 per cent until 2028.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Source: www.yahoo.com
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