The Chinese phone giant crossed its 100 million shipments mark on July 18, CEO Richard Yu said in a post on China’s Twitter-equivalent, Weibo. At the launch of Huawei nova 3, Yu expressed hopes for the company to ship 200 million phones by end of the year, Chinese media reported.
If Huawei achieves its goal, that’ll make it a much bigger threat to Apple’s position as the world’s second largest phone maker. This will be something to watch given Huawei has come close to shipping as many phones as Apple did before — selling 38.5 million phones compared to Apple’s 41 million in the second quarter last year. In 2017, the California-based company shipped a total of 215.8 million phones.
Huawei may be a thorn in the flesh for US lawmakers but people elsewhere are showing it a lot of love. Heading into this year, Huawei’s prospects for finally gaining a foothold in the US appeared to be brightening.
The world’s third-largest smartphone maker had just launched its latest flagship, the Huawei Mate 10 Pro, and it was garnering favorable reviews. Speculation had bubbled up that Huawei was poised to announce a partnership with AT&T, the second-largest carrier in the US — a coup for the Chinese telecommunications giant.
Even before Huawei’s planned keynote address at the conference, word got out that the rumored partnership with AT&T wouldn’t happen, reportedly due to political pressure. So when Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, got on stage at CES, he spent nearly an hour talking about an already launched product like it was new. At the end, he acknowledged the lack of a carrier was a hit to the company, which would sell its smartphone through retail partners like Amazon and Best Buy.
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Days later, reports emerged that Verizon had similarly dropped plans to sell a Huawei smartphone, again because of political pressure. On Wednesday, CNET broke the news that Best Buy would stop selling all Huawei products — including laptops and smartwatches — in the coming weeks.
In March this year, Huawei unveiled the P20 smartphone and the higher-end P20 Pro, which both pack an insane amount of camera technology. The company, however, confirmed that the P20 wouldn’t be heading to the US, despite holding briefings with the press here.
“We know that most of the publications have a global readership,” said a spokeswoman. “We thought it was important to make sure you were aware of the latest from Huawei.” The result: Americans will miss out on the chance to buy some of the flashiest new Android smartphones, including one that packs an intriguing Leica triple camera.
Huawei (pronounced wah-way) got its start selling cheap Android smartphones in China, but has since expanded throughout the world with high-end offerings. It’s among the world’s largest telecommunications companies, building network infrastructure gear, mobile processors and, yes, smartphones. It’s the third-largest smartphone vendor behind Samsung and Apple, according to Gartner. One of its newest smartphones, the Mate 10 Pro, is smart enough to drive a Porsche for a little while.
The problem is all about national security. The US government has expressed concern that Huawei might be spying on it’s citizens through its products, specifically its telecommunications equipment. In 2012, a House Intelligence Committee report detailed concerns that both Huawei and ZTE, a fellow Chinese vendor, pose a threat to national security. US companies were banned from buying Huawei equipment.
On Monday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed new rules that would bar broadband companies from using a government subsidy program to buy telecom equipment from companies that pose a national security threat. Though the FCC didn’t name any companies or countries, Pai had previously written a letter to lawmakers sharing his concerns about espionage threats from Huawei.