Huawei outperformed the global smartphone market in Q2 2020 with a modest -5% YoY decline rate. It managed to ship nearly 56 million unit smartphones worldwide this quarter.

Huawei is very aggressive on the roll-out of 5G in domestic market and it has become a clear market leader in the area. Huawei strengthened its 5G lineup in 2020 Q2, by adding P40 series, nova 7 series, Honor 30 series, and Honor X10 into the portfolio. Kirin 5G chipset and imaging capability are the key selling points of these new models. Facing the tightening US ban, Huawei has adjusted the chipset strategy. All the 5G products launched in Q3 have been switched to MTK chipsets instead. We view it is likely to become a long term strategy for Huawei to address the chipset supply issue.

Looking forward, we expect Huawei will maintain its leadership in China but keep losing ground in overseas markets. Actually, despite the strong headwinds in overseas markets, Huawei is still actively rolling out self-branded retail outlets and launching overseas-exclusive 4G devices in which GMS is replaced by HMS.

You can find more detailed analysis on Huawei’s Q2 2020 performance in our latest report Q2 ’20: Huawei: China Remain Solid. WSS clients could access the full analysis via this link.