Apple & Samsung expected to benefit most from US Huawei ban, says Ming-Chi Kuo

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects both Apple and Samsung to pick up Huawei customers outside China now that the manufacturer is no longer able to use Google's Android operating system without a branch.

In a note to investors seen by AppleInsider, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that sales of iPhones are likely to benefit from the current situation with Huawei. In particular, Google suspending the Chinese company's Android licence is going to have a significant impact. Kuo says that "some operators in non-Chinese markets have stopped selling Huawei smartphones" and that this is going to help Apple.

"If Huawei smartphone shipments continue to decline in non-Chinese markets," he says, "Apple's market share gain... is likely to offset its market share loss in the Chinese market, and we expect that annual iPhone shipments could return to around 200 million units."

Kuo expects even better results for Samsung.

"We think Samsung might be the primary beneficiary," he continues, "if Huawei loses market shares in the non-Chinese smartphone markets. We estimate Samsung smartphone shipments could reach 300-320 million units (versus the previous forecast of 290 million units)."

Prior to this report, Kuo had been predicting that iPhone sales would reach 200 million per year but only when 5G models are released in 2020.

Specifically, Kuo has previously estimated that iPhone sales would grow to between 195 million and 200 million by 2020. However, between 70 million and 75 million of those 2020 sales are predicted to be made in the latter half of the year, or when Apple has shipped 5G models.

Kuo said that despite previous doubts about Apple's plans, he now believes the company's 2020 iPhones will be 5G.

"We believe the uncertainty has been removed after Apple and Qualcom's end of patent dispute and entrance into a six-year licensing deal," he said, "and Intel's announcement that it will exit the 5G baseband chip business."

9 Comments

avon b7 8008 comments · 20 Years

About 5 years ago

Samsung has a promotion allowing Huawei users to pick up an S10 in exchange for a discount and handing in the Huawei phone.

chasm 3590 comments · 10 Years

It will be interesting to see how Canada reacts to this. The country is generally very pro-iPhone (like the US in terms of marketshare for each platform), but Huawei is a popular brand (especially on the west coast) here due in part to the country's high Asian/Chinese population, and in part to ... well, decent-enough Android phones at a variety of price points. There's no limitations or bans on Huawei stuff in place in Canada at present, to the best of my knowledge.

sflocal 6133 comments · 16 Years

chasm said:

It will be interesting to see how Canada reacts to this. The country is generally very pro-iPhone (like the US in terms of marketshare for each platform), but Huawei is a popular brand (especially on the west coast) here due in part to the country's high Asian/Chinese population, and in part to ... well, decent-enough Android phones at a variety of price points. There's no limitations or bans on Huawei stuff in place in Canada at present, to the best of my knowledge.

How did you conclude that Huawei is popular with the Asian/Chinese segment in western Canada? I find it odd that that it implies that because Huawei is a Chinese company, hence it must be popular with Chinese people outside of China.

EsquireCats 1268 comments · 8 Years

chasm said:

It will be interesting to see how Canada reacts to this. The country is generally very pro-iPhone (like the US in terms of marketshare for each platform), but Huawei is a popular brand (especially on the west coast) here due in part to the country's high Asian/Chinese population, and in part to ... well, decent-enough Android phones at a variety of price points. There's no limitations or bans on Huawei stuff in place in Canada at present, to the best of my knowledge.

Huawei has been placed on the "Entity List" which prevents US firms from supplying the company with technology without prior authorisation (which would presumably be denied.) This includes indirect supply - i.e. US technology that is licensed to a 3rd party that is not a US company. An example of this is that ARM is no longer working with Huawei, since this would allow the conduit of US technology - obviously this seriously undermine's Huawei's ability to produce new devices.

However this change doesn't prevent US consumers from purchasing Huawei phones - the appeal of doing so however is greatly reduced as the device won't receive any updates, carriers won't have optimised features moving forward and in time various services are unlikely to keep working as they do now.

The effect of this change is international and will become more apparent over time. I anticipate other Chinese brands and Samsung to be the big winners here due to price and feature similarity. I don't anticipate a significant change for Apple, since Apple does not offer much in Huawei's market space.

leavingthebigg 1291 comments · 11 Years

People chose Huawei instead of Apple and Samsung for a reason or two, three reasons. Turning to Samsung and especially Apple now seems counterintuitive. I would expect other Chinese brands and to possibly tp some extent Samsung to benefit from the Huawei band much more than Apple. On the 5G front, Ming Kuo should be aware how many people are calling out the b*ll sh*t 5G marketing ploy being made presented by him and many others. Apple can stay away from 5G beyond 2020 to wait for the tech to be deployed widely AND fine tuned. 4G/LTE still hasn’t reached its promised speed potential. 5G is a money grab. There is a reason we are hearing more about the promise of 5G instead hearing about the awesomeness of the devices that are currently on the market supporting 5G.