Huawei is not just dominating the foldable market in China – it is extending its lead. In the final quarter of 2024, Huawei shipped 2.506 million units for a 48.6% market share, per IDC data. Now analysts are reporting that Huawei has shipped 2.842 million units in the first quarter of this year for a controlling 76.6% market share.
This is an impressive growth of 53.1% year-on-year and a great rebound of the Q4 number, which was actually a 9.5% drop year-on-year.
Huawei’s growth in the foldable market comes at the expense of other makers. The biggest loser here is Honor – it went from a 20.6% share in Q4 2024 to just 9.1% in Q1.
This puts it slightly above Oppo, which accounted for 7.1% of foldable phones shipped in China. While not as impressive as Huawei’s gains, Oppo also grew significantly – it only had a 5.3% share in Q4. Third place used to belong to vivo, which is not even on the chart now. Xiaomi’s share also shrunk significantly going from Q4 to Q1 (7.4% to 2.6%).
To be fair, Xiaomi and vivo haven’t released new foldables since early/mid 2024. Oppo’s first foldable since 2023 arrived only a couple of months ago (the Find N5 this February), so its impact probably won’t be felt until Q2.
Last year, Huawei launched the first-ever tri-foldable (Mate XT Ultimate), a book-style foldable (Mate X6) and two flip phones (Pocket 2 and nova Flip). This year, it kicked things off with a quirky but innovative model (Pura X).
As for the overall smartphone market in China, it is led by vivo, while Huawei is nipping at Apple’s heels.
Source (in Chinese)
