Xiaomi Beats Huawei to Become the World’s Third Top Smartphone Manufacturer

The smartphone industry is on the decline. Global sales have dropped by huge margins owing to the ongoing pandemic. And Huawei has taken the brunt of it when you factor in the fact that the company was already losing ground outside China ever since it got blacklisted by the U.S. and lost access to Google’s Mobile Services. Because Huawei has taken a hit, its main rival Xiaomi, has managed to eke out a victory by surpassing Huawei in sales for the very first time, says Strategy Analytics.

Global smartphone shipments have gone down by 38%, and the sales fell 30% year-on-year in February 2020. If you crunch the numbers, that’s a drop of 65 million units. Worldwide sales dropped from 99.2 million in December 2019, to 61.8 million in 2020. Huawei’s shipment slump, however, dwarfs this decline.

Huawei only managed to ship 5.5 million phones, compared to the 12.2 million units shipped in January 2020 — which roughly makes for a 70% plunge. Xiaomi’s losses remain relatively mitigated, with shipments dropping from 10 million to 6 million, which translates into a slump of 30%.

To that end, Xiaomi has moved up a spot and now ranks third on the global monthly shipment list. The brand is currently making phones under two sub-brands, which could be acting as buffers for the tech titan. 

Samsung, having incurred a year-on-year loss of only 13% (which accounts for 1.9 million smartphones), remains on top and relatively unaffected. It’s followed by Apple, which still made 10.2 million iPhone sales, in comparison to last month’s 16 million. Oppo took a nosedive after its shipments dwindled by half in February, and it now occupies the fifth position, right after Huawei. Vivo stands last with only 3.5 million smartphone sales.