Samsung and Huawei are outselling Apple − and it’s not even close

According to new quarterly sales figures, Samsung and Huawei have come out well ahead of Apple in terms of smartphone shipments.

According to figures from Canalys, Q3 shipments of smartphones in 2019 show Samsung leading the pack with 78.9 million units, followed by Huawei at 66.8 million, with Apple completing the top three with sales of 43.5 million units.

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The data show that Apple is lagging well behind the best-selling brand in the world, while Chinese brands are becoming increasingly popular: Xiaomi and Oppo complete the top five brands in the world by shipments.

Apple will be hoping that their recently-released trio of new phones will do much to reverse their fortunes. The iPhone 11 was released with a lower starting price than anticipated, so that might be a step in the right direction to increasing their shipments vis-à-vis Huawei and Samsung.

The introduction of 5G connectivity to next year’s iPhone 12 range, as rumoured, could provide another welcome sales boost.

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Another factor that might change these sales figures in the months ahead is the Android ban, which has deprived Huawei phones of Google apps that are usually accessible by default on Android phones.

Though we were impressed by the Huawei Mate 30 Pro‘s excellent hardware, it’s hard to see handsets with none of these familiar apps continuing to do so well in Western markets, and so sales could well take a tumble.

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As for Samsung, the brand has plenty of new tricks up its sleeve for next year in a bid to increase its impressive dominance. We expect the Samsung Galaxy S20 and Samsung Galaxy Note 11 flagships to build upon the impressive performance set by their predecessors, which could result in even bigger sales than last year.

It is also interesting to consider whether foldables will make a breakthrough in 2020, which would be good news for the potential sequel to the Samsung Galaxy Fold.