Huawei surpassed Apple to grab second place in the global smartphone market for the first time in Q2 2018, and the Chinese company held on to that position in the third quarter. According to IDC, Huawei shipped 52 million smartphones in the three months ending September 30, edging closer towards market leader Samsung which saw its sales drop from 83.3 million to 72.2 million units year-over-year. Apple remained in third position with shipments more or less flat at 46.9 million units.

Chinese vendors have challenged the dominance of Samsung and Apple for years now, but this year marks the first time that one of them has actually broken into one of the two top spots. While Apple may have lost its place to Huawei in terms of sheer volume, the iPhone maker is still miles ahead of the competition in terms of revenue. In the past quarter alone, Apple made $37 billion selling iPhones, which is more than what Huawei’s entire consumer business made in all of 2017.

source: statista