HUAWEI says it beat Apple in global smartphone shipments in late 2016

Huawei claims it beat out Apple to become the second largest global smartphone vendor during one month last year, according to The Economic Times. In a statement earlier today, HUAWEI India Director of Product Centre Allen Wang said that HUAWEI, “Overtook Apple in global sales volume share in December.”

The Chinese manufacturer reportedly achieved 13.2 percent of global smartphone sales compared to Apple’s 12 percent for the last month of 2016.

CEO of HUAWEI’s Consumer Business Group Richard Yu has been outspoken about the company’s aims to supersede Apple in global smartphone shipments, putting a two-year time-frame on the prospect in comments made last November. HUAWEI will have no doubt been on the lookout for the first sign of this happening — and it may have only recently discovered evidence of it (which would explain why HUAWEI is announcing news about December 2016 sales in June 2017).

Despite HUAWEI making these claims, they may not be 100% accurate. Sales numbers are difficult to calculate and HUAWEI’s version of last December’s smartphone market might be very different to Apple’s. Research companies like Strategy Analytics and IDC provide quarterly updates rather than monthly ones, so we’re unable to seek out some kind of independent verification.

Still, HUAWEI by all accounts did see impressive growth during Q4, 2016 and the company claims it shipped 139 million smartphones last year. If it hasn’t beaten Apple over a one month period yet, it feels like it can’t be far off.