Huawei Leads 5G Phone Shipments Globally In 2019

5G networks might not yet be available for us here in Singapore, but it’s definitely coming. With it will come plenty of new developments, but most importantly for us consumers, the upgraded internet speed will be the biggest boon.

But we’ll need devices that can take advantage of that additional speed. Countries like South Korea and China are already implementing 5G networks, and we see that reflected in the sales of 5G phones. According to a report released on 28 Jan by Strategy Analytics, there were approximately 19 million 5G phones shipped in 2019 and Chinese brand Huawei led the pack with 6.9 million devices (37%) out of that figure.

That figure might seem impressive, but according to the report, most of that 6.9 million phones were shipped inside China where the US sanctions don’t affect the user experience as much.

Credit: Samsung

Following closely on Huawei’s heels is Samsung, with 6.7 million devices shipped. The phones were shipped internationally as well as domestically, to countries like the UK and USA.

Coming in third is Vivo with 2 million devices shipped. We previously reviewed one of Vivo’s flagship phones that also had 5G capabilities and were quite impressed by it.

Xiaomi and LG followed in fourth and fifth place, with 1.2 million and 900,000 units shipped respectively.

5G is inching ever closer and more brands will start to release 5G models of their phones in 2020, with a rumoured 5G phone coming out from Apple as well. It’ll be interesting to see how the market share changes when the 2020 report is released.

More information can be found in the report on Strategy Analytics’ website.