Huawei's CEO of consumer business, Yu Chendong (or Richard Yu) recently voiced some projections about where the company's success smartphone will progress in the next few years. Speaking in an interview conducted with CNBC, Yu indicated that he expects it to be 'on par' with that of Samsung in 2019. This, he estimates, may allow Huawei to take over from the Korean behemoth as the biggest phone maker in 2020.
Huawei's prowess with smartphone creation and distribution can fairly be described as meteoric over this decade. It have gone from a little-rated outsider to a major OEM that even makes its own in-house flagship processors in a relatively short space of time. In fact, it originally started out as an original design manufacturer (ODM), or one that made the hardware for other companies to stamp their brand on. However, it released its own first phone, the IDEOS, in 2011, and hasn't looked back since. This phone, which ran Android 2.2, cost about US$67.50 at its launch. This is a far cry from the Huawei Mate 20 series, which lead the way in mobile AI and multi-camera module use and can cost $1000 or more for some SKUs.
Then again, Yu also claimed that Huawei's consumer division also intends to diversify more, into app-based services and more types of AI. In addition, it may also compete well (even despite the China-US trade war) in 5G hardware provision. All in all, the future looks more or less bright for Huawei.