Gartner is out with its latest market data for the smartphone industry during Q2 2018. Joining several other analysts in doing so, Gartner highlights that Huawei has overtaken Apple as the world’s second biggest smartphone maker.
 
Gartner says overall smartphone “sales to end users by vendor” in Q2 2018 hit 374 million units, which is up 2 percent compared to the year-ago quarter.
 
On a manufacturer-basis, Samsung again came in at the top spot in terms of units and marketshare, with 72.3 million devices sold during the quarter for 19.3 percent marketshare. Both of those numbers are down compared to the year-ago quarter, however, which saw the company sell 82.9 million units for 22.6 percent of the market.
 
For the first time, Huawei comes in as the runner-up – netting 49.8 million units sold and 13.3 percent of the market. That’s up from 35.9 million units and 9.8 percent marketshare in the year-ago quarter.
 
Meanwhile, Apple was knocked down to third-place during the quarter with its 44.7 million units sold and 11.9 percent marketshare. Unit sales, as Apple itself highlighted during in its earnings release, were up slightly from 44.3 million in the year-ago quarter. The company’s marketshare, however, slipped from 12.1 percent.
 
Gartner research director Anshul Gupta said in a statement, “Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones” while demand for the iPhone X “started to slow down much earlier” this year than in previous years when new iPhones were introduced.
 
“Huawei continues to bring innovative features into its smartphones and expand its smartphone portfolio to cover larger consumer segments,” said research director Anshul Gupta in a statement.
 
“Demand for the iPhone X has started to slow down much earlier than when other new models were introduced,” he added.
 
Gartner is just the latest to say that Huawei overtook Apple during the second quarter. IDC issued a similar report last month, while Huawei itself has touted it will overtake Apple in terms of yearly smartphone sales by next year.
 
In and of itself, Huawei overtaking Apple shouldn’t be a surprise. Apple has three new iPhone models in store for next month, and according to reports, this could be the company’s biggest release in years – so Huawei’s reign might be short-lived.