Chinese buyers opt for Huawei over Apple, survey claims

Apple appears to be facing a setback in China after a Financial Times survey revealed that smartphone buyers in the country are choosing domestic brands over California-based Apple iPhone products, with Huawei being their first choice. Huawei has the top spot, according to the survey, with 31.4 percent of respondents opting for the brand.

The report said, “The proportion of people saying they would buy an iPhone as their next phone dropped to 24.2 percent in September, compared with 25.8 percent at the time of the iPhone 7 launch in 2016 and 31.4 percent in 2015.”

Huawei surpassed Apple in global smartphone sales consistently for June and July this year, according to research from Counterpoint’s Market Pulse. But with the release of Apple’s latest iPhone X, there’s a chance Huawei could be pushed back into third place. Samsung holds the number one spot globally.

“This is a significant milestone for Huawei, the largest Chinese smartphone brand with a growing global presence,” said Counterpoint’s Research Director, Peter Richardson. “It speaks volumes for this primarily network infrastructure vendor on how far it has grown in the consumer mobile handset space in the last three to four years.” 

Huawei’s global growth, Richardson says, can be attributed to its consistent investment in R&D and manufacturing, coupled with aggressive marketing and sales channel expansion. While this success streak could be temporary considering Apple’s annual iPhone refresh, Richardson adds, it nevertheless underscores the rate at which Huawei has been growing.