Huawei reassesses goal to be world’s bestselling smartphone vendor after US blacklist – South China Morning Post
What happened: A Huawei executive said the company is now closely assessing the effect of a US government trade blacklist. Zhao Ming, president of Honor, a Huawei smartphone brand, said that it was too early to say when the company would achieve the goal of overtaking Samsung and becoming the world’s largest smartphone vendor. Huawei’s CEO of consumer business Richard Yu said in January that the company would achieve that goal by 2020 at the latest. Huawei’s smartphone manufacturer, Taiwan-based Foxconn, has stopped several production lines for Huawei phones in recent days as the company reduced orders for new phones, according to people familiar with the matter.
Why it’s important: Huawei’s share of global smartphone shipments in the first quarter reached 15.7%, up from 10.5% in the same period last year, according to a report by research firm Gartner. The company is currently the second-largest smartphone vendor by shipments, while South Korean electronics giant Samsung is the largest with 19.2% of the market in Q1, declining slightly from 20.5% seen in the same period last year. Huawei is closing the gap with Samsung, but the escalating fallout from the US ban, especially the unavailability of Google apps and services, is taking its toll.