In Q3, Huawei's smartphone shipments surged, while Apple, Xiaomi, OV and Vivo's smartphone shipments plummeted.

The latest data released by third-party research company Canalys shows that in the third quarter of this year, Huawei (including Honor) shipped 41.5 million smartphones in the domestic market, breaking the record again, reaching a market share of 42%, with an annual growth rate of 66%...

This is also the sixth consecutive quarter that Huawei has achieved double-digit growth in the domestic market. In the same period last year, Huawei's share of the Chinese smartphone market was 24.9%.

Huawei's strong growth has put obvious pressure on other brands.

In the third quarter, the shipments of other leading mobile phone manufacturers OPPO (about 17.5 million units, market share of 17.9%), vivo (17 million units, market share of 17.4%), Xiaomi (8.8 million units, market share of 9.0%) and Apple (5.1 million units, market share of 5.2%) collectively declined. Their combined share accounted for only 50% of the market, down from 54% in the second quarter of 2019 and 64% in the third quarter of 2018.

Among the top five mobile phone brands, except for Huawei, which stood out with a 66% increase in shipments, the other four brands all saw a decline of more than 20%. Among them, Xiaomi had the largest decline of 33%.

"Huawei has opened up a huge gap in market share with other manufacturers," said Luping Peng, global vice president of mobile business at Canalys. "Huawei has a 25% higher market share than the second-place vivo this quarter. Its absolute market dominance gives Huawei considerable say in negotiations with the supply chain and in increasing its share in distribution channels. Given Huawei's close relationship with operators in 5G network deployment and its control over key components such as 5G chipsets that are compatible with local networks, Huawei's current market position will be further consolidated in the 5G era. This has put tremendous pressure on OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi, making it very difficult for them to make market breakthroughs."

In the third quarter, vivo surpassed OPPO to rank second, while Xiaomi followed OPPO in fourth place, and Apple maintained its fifth place.

Canalys research analyst Liu Siyi believes that Apple maintained its fifth place, thanks to the timely launch of the new iPhone 11 in mid-September, which accounted for nearly 40% of Apple's shipments in the third quarter. At the same time, Apple has made more preparations in the Chinese market than in previous years. "The iPhone 11 model focuses on improving camera functions, which has proven to be very important to Chinese consumers. At the same time, setting a lower iPhone 11 launch price (relative to the previous generation) and providing a more flexible channel profit structure for domestic distribution channels for new products are important market operations for Apple to stimulate shipments this year. Apple's challenges in China remain imminent, and manufacturers and operators will carry out a lot of marketing and promotions around 5G in the next two quarters. This will steal the show."?

At present, all mobile phone companies are focusing their main efforts on 5G mobile phones, and the three major operators are about to launch 5G packages on November 1.

Liu Siyi believes that as operators vigorously promote 5G services, smaller manufacturers hope to take advantage of 5G market opportunities to rapidly increase their smartphone market share.

At present, in addition to Huawei, vivo, ZTE, Xiaomi and Samsung have launched smartphones that support 5G networks priced between US$500 and US$1,000, and more new 5G products will be available in the fourth quarter.

Canalys believes that 5G tariffs and mobile phone prices will soon drop to attract mass market consumers. The intensity of competition among major manufacturers will be a continuation of the 4G era, and the first-mover advantage of 5G products will soon disappear.