Huawei: a leader in 5G smartphone production despite US sanctions

Huawei was excluded from major 5G market deployment worldwide including the United Kingdom and Canada. However, Huawei is securing a leadership position in the 5G smartphone production global market. Trend Force, a research firm, states in a press release issued on July 22, 2020, that Huawei would lead the global 5G market production. Chinese brands are expected to occupy four out of the top six spots of 5G smartphones brands.

China manufacturers released smartphones way ahead of competitors, occupying a 75% share of the global 5G smartphone market in the first half of 2020. Huawei is expected to produce about 74 million 5G smartphones in 2020, according to Trend Force.

Apple’s 5G smartphone production is expected to reach 70 million units in 2020.  Moreover, Samsung would be the third global 5G smartphone manufacturer reaching an estimated 29 million production units by the end of this year. Vivo, Oppo, and Xiaomi are ranked top 4 out of 6 top smartphone brands in 5G production and global market share. The fourth-ranked companies are expected to reach about 21 million, 20 million, and 19 million units, respectively, according to the same report.

According to Phone Arena, iPhone 12 will relocate Samsung to third place in the global 5G smartphone market.

On Friday 24, 2020, The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on its website that some 86 million 5G smartphones have been sold in China until today. This came amid wider 5G coverage- 400,000 5G base stations nationwide by the end of June 2020, according to Shine.

The 5G technology could be a game changer to the smartphone market growth. Ryan Reith, Vice President of International Data Corporation (IDC)- a worldwide mobile device tracker- said, “To be clear, we don’t think 5G will be the savior in smartphones, but we do see it as a critical evolution in mobile technology”, according to Electronic Design.