Samsung dominates the mobile market in Spain, if the number of units sold is taken into account, and Apple is in the lead in case of giving priority to the value of those sales. The US veto to Huawei has eroded the Chinese brand, with which some important American companies such as Google have disrupted trade relations.

Samsung , of South Korean origin, manages to cover 31.1% of the mobiles that were sold last year in Spain, according to the data collected from GFK, a reference in this sector. The consulting firm's figures, to which EL MUNDO has had access, reveal that Samsung has managed to distance itself from its immediate competitor, Huawei , which accounts for a 19.6% share at the end of 2019.

It is enough to go back a year, at the end of 2018, to verify that the Spanish market has also been conditioned by the reluctance and criticism of the Donald Trump Administration to the Chinese company, which it has come to accuse of espionage, a thesis that They have been tested and the brand denies strongly. This weekend, at the security summit held in Munich, US diplomacy has called for the European to join forces against Chinese technology . Shortly before, on Thursday, the US justice filed three new criminal charges against the company, to add to those 13 who already weighed against Huawei. The Chinese firm denies "the theft of trade secrets" and describes these measures as "a political persecution": "Attacking Huawei will not help the US lead the competition. Repeating a lie will not make it true ."

In this commercial and geopolitical tug of war between the US and China, a third party has come out reinforced: Samsung. This company, which has undergone in recent weeks a reorganization of its dome in Spain, sold in 2018 25.8% of the country's mobiles, so that it has gone from controlling the fourth part of the market to touching the third part of the same.

Huawei had closed 2018 very close to Samsung's records, but the 24.2% that the Chinese manufacturer reached then has fallen to 19.6% in 2019. The Chinese brand has seen its plans upset and, in Spain, has passed to monopolize the fourth part of the cake to keep only the fifth . Meanwhile, another Chinese firm, Xiaomi , stars in a brilliant rise: it already sells 18.1% of Spain's mobiles, compared to 10.3% that it dispatched a year earlier.

Trump's impact on Huawei

The loss of almost five percentage points by Huawei is the result of a downline that is born in coincidence with the veto applied by the US, as seen in the graph below. Last May, Trump granted the national emergency character to the protection of US telecommunications, in a tacit blockade of Chinese companies such as Huawei, which deploys networks in addition to selling devices.

The incorporation of the Shenzhen brand and 70 of its subsidiaries to a blacklist , prevents the Chinese company from maintaining commercial relations with the North American companies, a decision that leaves its new phones devoid of Android, Google's operating system , and in consequence of services like Gmail and Maps.

If in April of last year Huawei reached a 26% share in Spain, in May it fell to 21% and already in June it sank to 11.4% . From there, Huawei has traced its records in the country.

Broadcom, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Xilinx are some of the US companies that have had to interrupt their relations with Huawei. In this global society, the American Apple is also affected by tariffs on China, blockades to companies in that country and also by the coronavirus, which has stopped many of the factories of the Asian giant.

Apple, less mobile but more expensive

The apple company does not lead sales in Spain in number of units, but in the value of those sales, because, although it does not deliver so many mobiles, these are significantly more expensive than those of the competition. Thus, two out of every three euros sold on mobile phones in Spain go to Apple and Samsung. In 2019, the US technology company brought together 34.2% market share , in terms of sales value, after increasing its data from the previous year by nine tenths. For its part, the South Korean firm has traced up to 31.5%, improving three percentage points.

In the mid-range of terminals, below 600 euros, Samsung has placed three of its models among the five best sellers, as revealed last month: the Galaxy A50, the A40 and the A70. It should be noted, however, its takeoff in the highest range, which are some terminals of the family S and Note.

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