In places like China, however, Apple notched a bad 12.9% dive in sales in the fourth quarter, and, guess what, a lot of it went to Huawei. When Huawei announced that it is making a phone in the Mate series with a homebrew processor despite the US chip sanctions, local pride boosted its sales in its home turf significantly at the expense of Apple.
Even then Huawei only barely managed to climb into the honorable top 10 ranking, as other Chinese makers registered breathtaking sales numbers. Xiaomi, for instance, is now firmly the world’s biggest Chinese phone maker and third globally with 146.7 million handsets shipped.
The world’s largest phone maker actually isn’t Apple
Global phone market share of Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Oppo and others
Oppo and its Galaxy-beating phone specs is number 4 worldwide with 102.5 million despite that its patent disputes with Nokia prevented it from selling in major markets for the last two years or so. Now that the 5G patent quarrel has reached its legal resolution and Oppo can start selling in Europe again, it will probably climb up just behind Apple and Samsung.