Huawei tops Q1 2024 China smartphone market due to Mate and Nova series: Canalys

Huawei has been the best performer in the Q1 2024 China smartphone market and a major part of this achievement chalks up to Nova 12 and Mate 60 handsets, says Canalys. Both lineups gained immense support and remain in hot demand in China.

On April 26, Canalys research firm shared its analytical report of the Q1 2024 China smartphone market, where Huawei stands at the top. The company has shipped around 11.7 million units in the first quarter of this year with a 17% market share.

Compared to last year (same period), Huawei’s shipments increased by 4.9 million in Q1 2024. This ultimately hiked the company’s annual growth rate by 70%.

Report further shows that OPPO has secured the second rank with the help of the Reno 11 series and its dynamic sales performance. The firm sold 10.9 million units in the first quarter of 2024. Although the overall YoY growth dropped by 14%.

Honor is in third place with 10.6 million units shipment and 16% of the market share, the same as OPPO. Vivo and Apple obtained the fourth (10.3 million units) and fifth (10 million units) positions, respectively. Though the latter faced the highest decline in annual growth among its rivals – 25%.

Analysts’ words

Analysts from the research firm said that China’s mainland still lags over the global recovery by 11%. Yet the Chinese company – Huawei is doing great and returned at the top – thanks to the Mate 60 series and the Nova 12 series.

Mate 60 series appeared as a premium-level lineup in August 2023, improving the company’s growth as well as sales revenue. Whereas, the Nova 12 smartphones appeared as the ultimate mid-range series in December last year. Note that both these series have Kirin chipsets and high-end satellite features.

The Senior Analyst of Canalys Toby Zhu says that Huawei’s key strategy for this year is to focus on AI and implement it on smart devices, leveraging its deep R&D capabilities in AI solutions for industry and enterprise customers.

“With the continued expansion of the HarmonyOS ecosystem, Huawei emerges as the third OS for smartphones and other edge computing devices, breaking the two-horse race of Android and iOS in Mainland China.”

Canalys Research Manager Amber Liu mentions that China’s phone market growth is still at 1% and it needs to look after many aspects like price control, multi-channel management, and stock management to make things work effectively.

(Source – Canalys)