Despite Huawei's rocky start to the year (remember the arrest of the president's daughter ?), the company is ending December with some good (or rather, very good) news. It turns out the firm has reached a new record in its mobile phone sales history , surpassing 200 million units shipped worldwide. Let's take a look at the key factors behind this milestone.
A record they set out to achieve
Huawei CEO Yu Chengdong made his intentions clear mid-year: 2018 was a record-breaking year. In a video, the company executive stated that Huawei and Honor planned to sell over 200 million smartphones , an ambitious but not unattainable goal for a company that sold 153 million phones in 2017.
And so it was. The company recently published a statement confirming that it has surpassed the magical and round number of 200 million smartphones distributed worldwide, a milestone it says was achieved thanks especially to three specific phones.
According to Huawei, the brand's success in 2018 is primarily due to three models that we've seen and referenced repeatedly throughout the year: the Huawei P20 , the Honor 10 , and the Mate 20 series (which includes the Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro ). While the rest of their product lineup has certainly contributed to this position, it hasn't had the same impact as those three devices.
Undoubtedly, Huawei's growth has been unstoppable so far. We have to go back to 2010 to see how the company shipped 3 million units. Last year (seven years later), as we've already mentioned, it was at 153 million, and now it's at 200 million. The American media outlet CNET also very aptly points out that, according to a report by analyst Canalys , Huawei also managed, in the second quarter of 2018, to overtake Apple as the world's second-largest smartphone vendor.
Below you can see a graph of the brand's year-over-year growth, provided by VentureBeat :
With such a promising trajectory, it's understandable that the company's CEO is confident and able to make the predictions he does. His plans have proven quite realistic, making it clear that the company is going all out and has no intention of slowing down. We will most likely see the next generation of the P series, which has brought them so much success, in early 2019 with the highly anticipated launch of the Huawei P30 . If this winning streak continues, we'll see what figures they surprise us with at the end of next year.