Huawei reclaims top spot in China’s smartphone sales ranking, its first time back since company was added to US blacklist

Huawei Technologies climbed back to the No 1 spot of China’s smartphone market in the initial two weeks of this year, according to a report by research firm Counterpoint, putting more pressure on 2023 industry leader Apple and major mainland rivals in the world’s largest handset market.

This marks the first time Huawei reclaimed the top smartphone sales ranking on the mainland since Washington imposed sanctions on the Shenzhen-based company when it was added to the US trade blacklist in May 2019, which crippled the firm’s once-lucrative handset business, according to the report on Sunday by Counterpoint research analysts Ivan Lam and Zhang Mengmeng.

That resurgence was jump-started by Huawei’s surprise release last August of its Mate 60 Pro 5G smartphone – powered by its advanced Kirin 9000S processor, which was locally developed in spite of US tech sanctions – as well as the firm’s Android replacement mobile platform HarmonyOS, the report said. It also pointed out that brand loyalty among Chinese consumers greatly contributed to the popularity of Huawei’s new 5G handsets.

The Counterpoint report, however, indicated that Huawei still faced cutthroat competition on the mainland against Apple and major domestic handset vendors that include Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo, which continue to launch high-end smartphone models.

Robust domestic demand for Huawei’s new 5G smartphone models, years after its release of the Mate 40 series in October 2020, reflect improved consumer appetite for handset upgrades amid Beijing’s efforts to ease mounting pressure from debt, deflation and weak confidence.

China’s smartphone industry showed signs of recovery in 2023, when shipments grew 6.5 per cent year on year to 289 million units, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. Domestic brands made up 231 million units, or around 80 per cent, of total shipments.