What you need to know
- Huawei has reportedly shipped more than 240 million smartphones worldwide in 2019 despite the U.S. ban.
- Of that 240 million, 6.9 million were 5G smartphones — giving Huawei a record market share.
- Huawei is predicting sales revenue of 850 billion yuan or $123 billion USD for 2020.
Huawei had a rough year in 2019 thanks to butting heads with the U.S. government, an unfortunate occurrence that saw it placed on the Entity List preventing American companies from doing business with the Chinese tech giant.
However, you wouldn't know that by looking at its sales numbers. According to a recent report, Huawei shipped more than 240 million smartphones worldwide in 2019. In particular, sales of its Mate and P series phones increased more than 50% year-over-year.
It's no surprise that the P and Mate series are fantastic phones. Our own Harish had high praise for the P30 Pro when he reviewed it, calling it "the best phone I have ever used." In our Mate 30 review, we said it's "the best phone you shouldn't buy" due to the lack of Google apps.
What is surprising, is that even without access to Google apps and uncertainty of updates, Huawei still continues to ship millions of units around the world. It even managed to ship 6.9 million 5G phones in 2019 for a record market share. That takes the top spot away from Samsung which reportedly shipped 6.7 million 5G phones in 2019.
Along with Huawei's healthy smartphone sales, it also reported that sales of its wearables are performing well. For example, the Huawei Watch 2 has already shipped more than two million units in three months, while the Huawei FreeBuds 3 have shipped more than one million in its first month.
Looking to the future, Huawei's rotating chairman Xu Zhijun is predicting an 18% increase in sales revenue for a total of 850 billion yuan ($123 billion USD) for 2020 despite the continuing pressure from the U.S. He also stressed the importance of building out Huawei's HMS app platform to help with sales overseas after losing access to Google's apps and services.
