A new report has been published online claiming that the China-based phone maker, Huawei, is the second largest phone maker in Europe.
China is, in general, a fast rising economy and the country’s companies that are active both within the borders and abroad seem to be flourishing financially-wise as well.
Huawei, a relatively unknown Chinese firm, is one of those companies mentioned above and it has now taken over Europe’s smartphone industry, rising from the sixth to the second place in just 12 months, ending up right behind Samsung, which has been owning the first place for quite some time now.
According to data that was published by analysts at Kantar Worldpanel, Huawei’s success is mostly being noticed at countries such as Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK. Specialists believe that the said success comes from the Chinese firm’s strategy of selling flagship phones that are powerful enough to take it up against other top-tier handsets, at surprisingly affordable prices.
An additional factor that has contributed to Huawei’s success, is its sponsoring of high-profile football clubs, such as Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan, as well as the launch of the Huawei Watch. Thanks to all that – and, of course, the right timing – the firm has managed to overtake other colossal rivals including Sony, HTC and Motorola.
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On top of all the above, Sony, HTC and Motorola in particular, are grappling with several issues as percentages in sales continue getting lower with each financial quarter.
Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar, said:
“Thanks to an increase in marketing focus and the weakening of brands such as Sony, HTC and Motorola, Huawei was able to rise to second place among Android brands in Europe from sixth place in 2014. With a wider portfolio of products ranging from the high-end all the way to the low-end, Huawei made particular inroads in Spain and Italy.”
More specifically, Spain and Italy used to provide the most buyers to low and mid-range Nokia Lumia handsets, so since Microsoft’s failure in Nokia’s smartphones department, you can see why all those consumers shifted to Huawei’s products.
Now to the more general news in smartphone sales around the five main European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK), Android’s share has dropped from 75.1% to 74% in the three months to September 15, compared to last year. Windows gained a 0.2% while BlackBerry is not even included on its own, in Kantar’s stats and is grouped into a category labelled as “other” which halved to a 1% share.
Apple, on the other hand, grew by 1.7%, but that is no surprise given that the American tech giant has had an excessive fiscal year.
As for the UK, Android share fell by 6.7% while iOS grew 7.8%. Now they hold 51.4% and 38.3% of the market accordingly.
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