• Sales.Asiatification of the mobile: Samsung and the banned Huawei outdo Apple

"The biggest change in the smartphone sector in the last 12 months has been the rise of Huawei," says the latest telecommunications report prepared by GSMA. The global association that encompasses mobile operators does not highlight the supposed threat that the Chinese company would entail for 5G development, as Donald Trump maintains, but the force it has gained internationally, "a tough warning for Samsung and Apple outside the US ", especially if Huawei carries out" an aggressive pricing policy to gain quota. "

The Chinese telecommunications company has stopped turning its business to the development of telecommunications equipment (it remains the world leader) to boost the sale of consumer devices. The trend has already changed in 2017, but it would have been strengthened following the veto imposed by the US on Huawei. "The Huawei device business (mostly smartphones ) has gone from not being globally relevant in 2013 to becoming the largest revenue generator in the company , eclipsing the area of ​​telecommunications equipment sales to operators."

The origin of this eastern empire is, of course, in China, where GSMA attributes to Huawei about 427 million devices in circulation and a 37% share in the mobile phone market. 80% of the company's phones would therefore be limited to that country, but " the enormous size of China masks Huawei's incipient expansion in international markets, mainly Europe, where the estimate is that there are more than 100 million of smartphones "of the brand based in Shenzhen. "While Apple and Samsung credit more than half of the smartphones in circulation [55% in the world], Huawei has expanded beyond China to take significant positions in Europe."

Huawei's boom is part of a broader trend: "China has become the global epicenter," GSMA notes in the first point of its report. In fact, that country covers 75% of production and 30% of sales .

It should be added that the Asian giant is not the only nation of relevance in that continent, as the South Korean Samsung is well positioned in the development of 5G networks and also appears as the main seller of smartphones in countries such as Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Russia , Holland, Turkey, Argentina and Chile, in addition to South Korea itself. Huawei is imposed in China and Apple in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Japan and Saudi Arabia.

Huawei down and comeback in Spain

In Spain, a country that stands out for the almost total penetration of mobile telephony among its citizens and one of the pioneer nations in the implementation of 5G, thanks to the commercial launch that Vodafone carried out last summer, Samsung is clearly the leader. As the GSMA Intelligence survey reflects, the South Korean firm would have a 23% share, although other studies put it close to 30%.

According to data collected by EL MUNDO, Huawei suffered a significant reduction in quota last June , to stay around 10% of the smartphone sales quota, but it would have managed to recover in subsequent months, until it was again around 20 %, according to GFK data to which this newspaper has had access.

Globally, the company seems to continue increasing its figures, despite the veto imposed in the US. In the first nine months of 2019, Huawei's global revenues improved 24.4% over the same period of the previous year.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Huawei
  • Samsung
  • China
  • Europe
  • Spain
  • Italy
  • Russia
  • Turkey
  • Holland
  • France
  • Donald Trump
  • South Korea
  • Chile
  • Argentina
  • Germany

InterviewRen Zhengfei, founder of Huawei: "The 5G network in Spain will be the best in Europe"

2010-2019The unpredictable decade that turned the world upside down

Leisure The magic of Jorge Blass makes the inventions of the future come true