Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge
For the first time ever, Huawei has shipped more smartphones worldwide over a quarter than any other company, according to a new report from analyst firm Canalys. Huawei has long harbored ambitions to overtake Samsung as the world’s biggest smartphone seller, and going by the numbers from Canalys, that’s just what happened during the April-June period this year.
That doesn’t mean Huawei will hold onto the top spot for long, as the results were clearly influenced by the ongoing pandemic. Canalys’ figure of 55.8 million Huawei smartphones shipped is actually down 5 percent year-on-year, while Samsung slid 30 percent to 53.7 million. More than 70 percent of Huawei’s devices are now sold in China, which hasn’t been hit as hard by COVID-19 as…