Huawei had skyrocketed and reached the top spot a few years ago. Now, due to the US ban, the Chinese tech giant’s smartphone business had dropped and continues to do so.

As per Counterpoint Research, Huawei only shipped 33 million smartphones in the last quarter of 2020. That’s only an 8% market share, resulting in a 41% year-on-year decline.

Counterpoint-Q4-2020

Once on the top spot, Huawei fell in sixth place, just behind its Chinese rivals’ Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo — with emerging brand Realme behind it. The list is then topped by Apple, followed by Samsung in number two.

Still, for the entire 2020, Huawei managed to ship 238.7 million smartphones, putting it in third place with Samsung at number one and Apple second.

Counterpoint-Q4-2020-Apple-Realme

Despite that, we expect Huawei to slip further, especially that an end to the US sanction is nowhere in sight. In fact, before leaving office, then-U.S. president Donald Trump hit Huawei with one-last blow have revoked the few licenses it granted to American companies to work with Huawei.

The U.S. ban also forced Huawei to sell its Honor sub-brand. They were also rumored to be selling its flagship Mate and P-series line, which the company has debunked.

Still, it looks like Huawei is not giving up that easily. Just recently, it’s been confirmed that the Chinese company acquired 90 security-related patents from Blackberry. They also plan on sharing its Android replacement, HarmonyOS, with other manufacturers.

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