Huawei smartphone shipments to decline by 40-60 million units per year
Huawei, the worlds second largest smartphone maker, is expecting to suffer from a massive drop in sales due to the recent US trade ban. The full impact of the trace ban still needs to play out, but internal sources at Huawei say that the company’s smartphone sales are expected to drop by 40-60 million units which would result in a $30 billion decline in revenue over the next two years.
Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei, claims that the company will be able to recover from this unexpected blow once it gets through a “switchover of products,” be he didn’t elaborate further or explain what Huawei’s roadmap will look like going into 2020. For now, Huawei appears to be pushing forward with its plans to launch the Honor 20 in Europe and Asia this Friday, but several European service providers have already dropped plans to sell the phone since it’s not clear it Huawei will be able to support the smartphone going forward. Some reports claim that Huawei could be ready to pull the plug on the phone if it doesn’t perform well at launch.
While we never like seeing a dominant player in the Android space falter, Huawei’s misfortune could be exactly what’s needed for other brands to grow and flourish. Xiaomi has recently been making inroads into European markets and we suspect other Chinese brands like Oppo will take advantage of this rare opportunity.
Source: Engadget