Huawei is also losing importance as a smartphone provider in its home country. The company recently had to drop out of the top 5 manufacturers of mobile devices in China due to falling quantities.
As reported by the Japanese economic service Nikkei Asia, citing statistics from market researchers from IDC, Huawei is no longer part of the top 5 largest smartphone suppliers in China by volume. For the first time in four years, in which the group was consistently number 1 on the list, you are now out in one fell swoop.
The reason for the crash is, of course, the export restrictions for US companies that continue to apply under the Biden administration, which prohibit companies from the US and other countries from supplying technologies and products to Huawei if it develops with the help of US technology or are manufactured or contain components by US companies.
Huawei has therefore not been able to equip new smartphones with 5G modems for a long time and also has massive difficulties in procuring the components required for its devices. Although there are still some 5G-capable models on offer, these are only equipped with leftover chips that could still be obtained before US sanctions were further tightened.
Beautiful smartphones – but they are selling less and less. / ©Huawei
Vivo and Oppo are ahead, Apple has grown strongly
Aside from Huawei, other local smartphone vendors dominate in China, most notably the Vivo brand, which topped the rankings with 71 million devices sold in 2021. Oppo follows in second place with 67.1 million units sold. Vivo and Oppo belong to the same company conglomerate and increased their sales in China by 23.3 and 18.3 percent respectively in 2021.
Xiaomi is in third place in the top list with 51.1 million devices sold, an increase of a remarkable 31 percent. Apple, on the other hand, was able to record the strongest growth, with the US group’s unit numbers rising to an impressive 50.3 million units in China alone last year, which corresponds to an enormous increase of 39.5 percent.
The former Huawei subsidiary Honor apparently took over most of Huawei’s shares in the domestic market at lightning speed: with 38.6 million units sold and growth of 4.9 percent, the brand, which is now at least officially independent, took fifth place in 2021.
Overall, after five years and a slump in 2020 caused by the coronavirus pandemic, China saw slight growth in smartphone sales for the first time last year. According to IDC, the manufacturers were able to sell a good 329.3 million in total in 2021