Leaping tiger: Huawei overtakes Apple in global smartphone sales

Huawei's upcoming flagship, the Honor 9, is set to be revealed before the end of the month. (Source: Huawei)

Huawei overtook Apple in global sales volume in December of 2016, according to Huawei India exec Allen Wang. This puts Huawei just behind Samsung in terms of numbers of handsets sold globally.

Douglas Black, Published 06/12/2017

In April this year, Huawei edged-out rival Oppo to hold the title for largest marketshare in China's red-hot smartphone market. It's a strong showing for the company, but it perhaps wasn't surprising given Huawei's lofty investment and ambition in smartphones and mobile computing. What might be more surprising, however, is the fact that Huawei has apparently overtaken Apple to become the number two handset company in global sales volume.

The announcement came from Huawei India Director Allen Wang today, but it seems that the event at the center of the news itself — surpassing Apple in global sales volume — actually happened in December of 2016. According to Wang, Huawei reached 13.2 percent global share while Apple trailed around 12 percent at the time.

This puts Huawei solidly in second place, but who is in the driver's seat? Samsung, of course. While Samsung leads in global sales, Huawei is seeing strong growth and has even become more popular than the Korean electronics giant in some markets, according to Wang.