Huawei reportedly expecting massive international sales drop due to US ban
Huawei has endured a torrid few weeks, as it continues to battle the effects of a U.S. trade ban. Between Arm, Google, Qualcomm and other firms being unable to do business with it, the Chinese brand has suffered a major blow.
Now, Bloomberg reports that Huawei is expecting international smartphone sales to drop by 40 to 60 percent due to the ban. The outlet, citing several sources, says internal estimates are that there’ll be a sales drop of roughly 40 to 60 million devices this year.
Read: Huawei reportedly looking at Sailfish OS fork as its Android alternative
This makes for a big drop, especially as Huawei shipped 200 million smartphones in 2018. The company looked on course to narrow the gap and possibly pass Samsung in 2019, but this doesn’t seem to be the case any more.
Sources told Bloomberg that Huawei is also exploring several options in the wake of the U.S. trade ban, including the possibility of pulling the Honor 20 series. The range is already available in its home country of China, where it’s reportedly sold one million units in two weeks.
The new Honor phones are expected to launch in Europe on June 21, but it’s believed executives could cut off shipments if sales are poor. In fact, sources told the outlet that two of France’s biggest networks aren’t carrying the Honor 20 series at all. A Huawei spokesperson told Bloomberg that the launches were indeed “proceeding.”
It’s also believed that Huawei is hoping to grab as much as 50 percent market share in China, which would help it offset the expected international sales decline. Huawei/Honor achieved 34 percent market share in Q1 2019 according to Counterpoint Research. This is a big leap over Q1 2018, when the company was sitting at 22 percent.
We’ve contacted Huawei and Honor for comment and will update the article accordingly should they get back to us. Would you buy a new Huawei phone in the wake of the U.S. trade ban? Let us know in the comments!
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from Android Authority http://bit.ly/31BDUsy
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