China’s Huawei overtakes Microsoft as world’s No. 3 mobile phone vendor

Apple’s iPhone unit sales grew 35% which is nearly 3X the rate of growth of the smartphone market overall and gained share in all of their geographic segments. “Apple outperformed as consumers in China and elsewhere upgraded to bigger-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models”.

Prior to last quarter, Microsoft was hanging onto the No. 3 spot, though far behind Apple and Samsung.

Fellow Chinese vendor Xiaomi saw its second-quarter market share rise to 4.6 percent from 3.5 percent in the same quarter a year ago, as shipments rose to 19.8 million from 15.1 million.

On Q2 2015, Huawei had 7% of mobile phone market share, with over 30 million shipments and beating Microsoft, which was formerly on the 3rd spot but saw a decrease from 50.3 million to 27.8 million.

A report from Strategy Analytics shows that Samsung is still the world leader, enjoying 20.5pc of the global market, however, Apple and Huawei between them closed up by 7pc, with each now rising to 11pc and 7pc respectively.

“Global mobile phone shipments grew a lackluster 2 percent annually from 428 million units in [2014’s second quarter] to 434.6 million in [2015’s second quarter]”, Strategy Analytics director Woody Oh said. That was down from 95.3 million units a year earlier.

Microsoft has been feeling pain in the mobile phone market.

Mawston remarked that Microsoft’s share is “near an all-time low”, with the company continuing to “lose ground” in feature phones and that its “Lumia” smartphone line is in a “holding pattern”.

These metrics come courtesy of Strategy Analytics. “Huawei is expanding rapidly across Asia, Europe and North America, putting competitive pressure on key rivals such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Lenovo, LG, Sony and Alcatel”.

“Xiaomi remains a major player in the China mobile phone market, but its local and global growth is slowing and Xiaomi is facing intense competition from Huawei, Meizu and others”, he says.

Windows 10 Mobile will have an uphill battle on its hands when Microsoft rolls it out later this year, as the company’s share in the mobile market continues to slip.

Microsoft disclosed in its most recent earnings report that it wrote down its investment in mobile phone maker Nokia by $7.6 billion.