Chinese tech ‘wolf’ Huawei stalks Apple and Samsung

Shanghai: Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Chinese telecoms behemoth Huawei, likens the company to a ruthless "wolf" tirelessly running down its prey, an ethos that could soon make it the apex predator of the smartphone world.

Despite being essentially barred from the critical US market, Huawei surpassed Apple to become the world´s number two smartphone maker in the second quarter of this year and has market leader Samsung in its sights.

Huawei has achieved this in part by refocusing away from the futile fight for US access and toward gobbling up market share in developing nations with its moderately priced but increasingly sophisticated phones, analysts say.

"Huawei´s image and brand recognition across markets and regions is getting better and better," said Tarun Pathak of global market analysis firm Counterpoint.

"They´ve differentiated and positioned their products across price segments, which makes an interesting conversation in terms of competing with Apple and Samsung."

Founded by Ren, now 73, with a few thousand dollars in 1987, Huawei focused initially on the backbone hardware for telecommunications networks, growing to become the world leader.

Fifteen years after introducing its first phone, Huawei surpassed Apple in the April-June quarter to take second place globally, International Data Corporation (IDC) said last week, the first time since 2010 that Apple was not in the top two.

Huawei´s consumer products chief Richard Yu raised the ante Friday, saying the company could overtake South Korean giant Samsung by late 2019.

"The importance of Huawei overtaking Apple this quarter cannot be overstated," senior analyst Ben Stanton of Canalys wrote in a report on the latest sales data.

"Huawei´s exclusion from the US has forced it to work harder in Asia and Europe to achieve its goals."

Based in the southern China tech hub of Shenzhen, Huawei had already been pushing into developing markets even before political pressure -- peaking this year with President Donald Trump´s China trade war -- effectively slammed the US door shut.

Huawei´s exclusion stems in part from US distrust over Ren´s earlier career as a Chinese military technologist and fears that Beijing could strong-arm its tech champions into aiding with espionage abroad. Huawei denies any government links.