Huawei, Samsung get a phone boost as consumers look for better value
However, overall phones sales slipped in the third quarter, according to Gartner.
Huawei has big sales numbers even though it's banned from the US.
Smartphone sales dipped overall in the third quarter, but Huawei and Samsung still managed to make gains thanks in part to consumers looking for better value from their devices, according to a new report from market researcher Gartner.
A Gartner report released Tuesday shows a 0.4% decline in phone sales in the third quarter compared with the same period in 2018. Samsung, Huawei and Oppo all sold more phones in the quarter, while Apple saw a double-digit decline, according to Gartner.
"Today's smartphone user is opting for midtier smartphones over premium-tier ones because they offer better value for money," Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner, said in a statement. "In addition, while waiting for 5G network coverage to increase to more countries, smartphone users are delaying their purchase decisions until 2020."
Huawei had the biggest improvement in the third quarter selling 65.8 million smartphones, an increase of 26% from a year earlier. This comes as the Chinese company has had multiple run-ins with the US government over security, resulting in its phones being hard to come by in America.
Gartner expects Black Friday deals to lead to an increase in consumer demand for phones in the fourth quarter.