Huawei beat market expectation in Q1 2020. Though its smartphone shipments posted -18% annual decline rate this quarter, Huawei managed to regain the second position in global smartphone market by volume, and continued its leadership in Asia Pacific.
Despite of COVID-19, Huawei showed strong resilience in China market where it significantly outperformed all major rivals and overall market, and captured a record high market share this quarter. Outside China however Huawei continued to suffer from the US ban.
In 5G segment, Huawei ranked the second largest vendor after Samsung this quarter, but vast majority volumes came from China market. Huawei accelerated its 5G ramp-up in April with new flagship P40 series and high/premium Honor 30 series and nova 7 series.
- P40 series is a decent 5G line-up with impressive hardware specifications. But it is suffering from shifting consumer demand under COVID pandemic in China and lack of Google Mobile Service in overseas market.
- The launch of Honor 30 and Nova 7 series are the vendor’s latest efforts to strengthen its 5G portfolio, which will be a major growth driver in Chinese smartphone market in 2020. They are the vendor’s reaction to vivo, OPPO, and Xiaomi’s relentless brand upgrade in high/premium price band.
However, we caution the increasing cannibalization risks between Honor series and nova series, given the increasing overlapping on target audience, price tier, and key selling points. Meanwhile, the price-friendly Honor and Nova models would also impact P40 performance in China market too.
Our latest report Q1 ’20: Huawei: Strong Resilience in China was published. WSS clients could download the full report via this link.