Huawei's mobile phone shipments exploded: Apple was losing ground and sales fell sharply

Ray Technology

2024-04-26 20:49Posted in Guangdong science and technology creators

As May approaches, major market research institutions have released relevant data for the first quarter of China's smartphone market in 2024. Interestingly, the data given by IDC, Canalys, and Counterpoint differ in detail.

To put it simply, the market trends presented by the reports of the three institutions are basically the same, all of which indicate that China's smartphone market has recovered, but the market share and ranking of specific manufacturers are slightly different. For example, Counterpoint's data says that vivo is the shipment champion, and when it comes to IDC and Canalys, the first place has become Honor and Huawei.

（图片来源：IDC、Canalys、Counterpoint）

But no matter what, one thing in common can be found from the data given by the three institutions, that is, Huawei ushered in a wave of explosive periods after two years of silence, with shipments exceeding 11.7 million units, once again becoming the main sales force in the domestic mobile phone market, which is also the first time that Huawei has achieved such excellent results again since 2019.

In addition, the release of the Pura 70 series will further improve Huawei's shipment figures, and it is not difficult to guess that it will be Huawei's dominance in the second quarter of this year and even throughout 2024.

Huawei, finally the king is back

According to the data given by the three research institutions, Huawei's average growth rate in the first quarter of 2024 reached more than 70%, making it the fastest growing manufacturer among the top five manufacturers. However, Huawei's ultra-rapid growth will inevitably cause other manufacturers to lose their share, such as OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi and Apple have all declined to varying degrees in the first quarter of 2024, of which Xiaomi directly fell out of the top five, and Apple plummeted by about 20%, which is the worst of the five.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

So, how did Huawei climb all the way from others to the top three in China in just half a year?In Xiaolei's view, there are two main reasons, the first is the return of Huawei's flagship mobile phone, the Huawei Mate 60 series released in the second half of last year has been in short supply for a long time, and it can even be said that it is the hottest mobile phone in the entire 2023, and the subsequent release of nova 12 series accounts for one-third of Huawei's quarterly shipments.

According to relevant reports, Huawei's total mobile phone shipments will reach 35 million units in 2023, an increase of about 5 million units year-on-year, which is Huawei's biggest improvement in recent years.

As Huawei's supply chain and production capacity gradually improve, its shipments will increase significantly again, and Huawei is currently the only manufacturer in the market that mainly relies on high-end products to grab market share, rather than relying on low-end mobile phone impulses like its competitors, which is particularly important.

Not to mention last week's release of the Pura 70 series once again set off a rush to buy, some industry insiders revealed that the total shipments of the Pura 70 series will reach 10 million units-12 million units, not to mention the domestic market, looking at the global market, only the iPhone can compete with it, it is foreseeable that Huawei will be "terrifyingly strong" in this season.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

For example, the just-released Pura 70 series is equipped with a series of practical functions that users need in their daily lives, such as flash shooting, super macro, and intelligent elimination. These features are not unusual, but they are very few that can be integrated on a mobile phone and achieve the highest level in the industry, compared with the previous general pursuit of high configuration and high performance, today's consumers are actually more concerned about the overall experience of using the mobile phone, and the excellent experience is always a lot better than brainless stacking.

(Image source: Huawei official)

It is worth mentioning that perhaps due to Huawei's strong comeback, Apple's sales fell by 19.1% year-on-year in the quarter. As for the reason, you must have guessed,On the one hand, the iPhone 15 series really has no new ideas and selling points,Both performance and image performance are not much different from the 14 and 13 series,Not to mention that its starting price is almost the highest in the mobile phone market;on the other handiPhoneIt is currently one of the mobile phone manufacturers with the worst support for AI on the market,In the current era of per capita AI,iPhone has indeed lagged behind the times。

Not to mention that some domestic manufacturers have opened up the ecology between Android mobile phones and Mac, iPad and other Apple smart terminals, for Xiaolei, there is indeed no need for the iPhone to continue to use. It seems that Apple's decline may not be able to stop this year, and as netizens commented before, "Apple's share of it will all be returned intact now".

(Image source: Lei Technology Drawing)

Some industry bloggers broke the news that Huawei plans to ship about 6000~65 million mobile phones in 2024, accounting for about 22% of the annual mobile phone shipments according to market analysis. In 2025, Huawei will set the shipment target at 8000~90 million units, and is expected to win 30% of the share, in other words, for every three mobile phones bought by domestic consumers, one comes from Huawei. This is not very difficult for Huawei, which once won 50% of the domestic market.

The mobile phone market is back in the red air

Of course, it is not all smooth sailing for Huawei at present, first, there is not much construction in the mid-range market, and the current mid-range market has almost been eaten up by OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor. The mid-range mobile phone market is not like the high-end market, consumers are willing to pay for the brand premium, they are more concerned about the configuration and cost performance of the product, it can be said that the more cost-effective the product, the better the reputation and sales in the mid-range mobile phone market.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

Huawei's mobile phones have not always been known for their cost performance, and it is difficult to replicate the success of the high-end mobile phone market, not to mention that Huawei's current focus is on the high-end market, and it is difficult to allocate a part of the production capacity to be used for positioning two or three thousand yuan products. After all, there is no so-called brand loyalty in this price segment, and if the service is not good for consumers, there will definitely be problems with the future growth space.

The second is that Huawei's opponents are still strong, taking Apple, which fell the most in this quarter, as an example, although the overall decline is about 20%, it does not affect the iPhone 15 series is still one of the world's best-selling mobile phones. The AI problem mentioned above will also be solved this year.

According to relevant sources, at the upcoming WWDC, Apple will further reveal the news related to the embedded AI model of the iPhone, such as the copywriting summary that domestic manufacturers have, image processing, computational photography and a series of functions should not be absent, which will also become a key factor for Apple users to buy a machine.

And Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and Honor, the four old rivals, not to mention, after so many years in the mobile phone market, their control of consumer pain points is actually not much worse than Huawei, and the performance of various manufacturers in the high-end mobile phone market is also very good, which is actually a lot of pressure on Huawei, which focuses on the high-end market.

(Image source: Produced by Lei Technology)

Finally, it is difficult for Huawei to reproduce the brilliant achievements of the Mate60 series, and the vast majority of users who snapped up the Huawei Mate60 series last year were "nail households" of the Mate40 series / previous era , as well as some Apple users, it can be said that Huawei's replacement tide has been almost exhausted last year, so the Huawei Mate70 series released this year may be difficult to replicate the performance of the Mate60 series, the latest release of the Pura70 series in the secondary market with a low price increase and the breakage of some versions, has been able to explain some of the situation.

However, even so, Huawei's growth in China is still continuing, and with the continuous iteration of Kirin chips, Huawei's market share in multiple price segments will continue to increase.

The hot sales of the Mate60 series, Pura 70 series and folding screen have also allowed Huawei to consolidate its position in the high-end mobile phone market, and Huawei's success has also pointed out a path for the entire mobile phone market: blindly relying on cost-effective models to ensure market share cannot be recognized by consumers, and more "no one else has" characteristics. Huawei will also usher in a broader stage, we might as well wait and see.

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