Huawei’s Chinese mobile rivals look to capitalise on its US woes
Live MintSHENZHEN, CHINA :Chinese handset rivals of Huawei Technologies including Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo are making aggressive moves to seize market share from their giant rival, after stepped-up US sanctions hobbled Huawei's supply chains, industry insiders say. Huawei briefly overtook Samsung as the world's biggest handset maker in the first half of this year, before shipments fell 23% to 51.7 million units in the third quarter, according to research firm Canalys. Some analysts believe the firms might be too optimistic about their targets, but Realme's Wang said stockpiling of components have also been driven by disruption to production caused by Covid-19 lockdowns earlier in the year and because Huawei's move to boost its inventories impacted rivals' supply chains. Analysts said Huawei's sale of Honor may partly fend off competitors' intrusion into the budget-end of the market, provided that Honor is able to resume sourcing U.S. technology.