Honor was the third-largest smartphone producer in China with a market share inside the country of 15%
Huawei P50 series could be the company’s only flagship release in 2021
Pathak adds that “Honor is also targeting the premium segment with the Magic series, thus expanding its portfolio across price bands.” Before the U.S. restrictions on Huawei started to bite, Huawei dominated the Chinese smartphone market. During the third quarter of 2019, Huawei was responsible for over 42% of the smartphone market in the country. Vivo was second with a meager (by comparison) 17.9% share. Huawei showed a remarkable 66% year-over-year gain in shipments during that quarter.
Honor’s global market share during August was 3.7%, up from 1.5% in February. Neil Shah, Counterpoint’s Research Director, said that most of Honor’s growth last month came from gains made in China. In the global smartphone marketplace, Honor will face competition from Apple, Samsung, and Xiaomi. The latter has taken some of the market share lost by Huawei.
Huawei is expected to drop from the third-largest smartphone manufacturer worldwide to number seven this year
Counterpoint’s Pathak stated, “There was also a pent-up demand from the loyal Huawei and Honor consumers who held on to their devices and did not switch to other brands. Its strong relationships with distributors also helped Honor relaunch products on a large scale. Honor’s resurrection will further intensify competition in the Chinese market in H2 2021.”
Huawei could not keep that position throughout 2020 but did finish in third behind Samsung’s 18.8% market share and Apple’s 14.4%. Huawei owned 13.5% of the global smartphone market last year For 2021, Huawei is expected to finish as the seventh-largest smartphone manufacturer in the world with Honor right behind it.
