HUAWEI takes the top smartphone spot in China for Q1 2017

Thanks in part to the release of the P10 and P10 Plus, Huawei has regained the top spot in the smartphone market in China. According to the research firm Canalys, the company shipped close to 21 million smartphones in that country in the first quarter of 2017, and claimed an 18 percent market share.

HUAWEI took the top spot away from rival Oppo, which had claimed the number one smartphone position in China in the last two quarters. It went down to second place in the first quarter of 2017, but it was close behind HUAWEI with shipments of just under 20 million smartphones. Third place went to Vivo, with shipments of 17 million units. The top three companies controlled over 50 percent of all smartphone shipments in China during the quarter, according to Canalys.

Overall, the firm claims that China saw a total of 114 million smartphones shipped during the first quarter of the year, up 9 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Xiaomi, which was the biggest smartphone company in China just a few years ago, is now in fifth place in the market, behind Apple. Canalys says Xiaomi shipped just over 9 million units for the quarter. The company recently confirmed it won’t launch phones in the US and Western European markets until 2019 at the earliest.

It will be interesting to see if HUAWEI can maintain that number one slot during the quarter, even with the strong competition from OPPO and vivo. Recently, rumors hit the internet that HUAWEI was in talks with AT&T, centering on the carrier possibly selling one of HUAWEI’s phones in the US. So far, those reports have yet to be confirmed or denied.