Still Without a US Carrier, Huawei Pushes Past Apple in Smart Phone Sales

The curious case of Huawei continues to unfold as it becomes the second biggest smartphone manufacturer in the world, pushing past Apple for the first time ever according to data from IDC and Canalys. Although the market as whole shrunk by 1.8 percent in Q2, their unique level of disruption has let Huawei take a 15.8 percent market share with 54.2 million smartphones shipped.

The arrival of Huawei in the second position marks the first quarter since 2Q10 where Apple has not been the number one or two smartphone company in terms of market share, IDC notes in their press release.

But it's really not fair to say Apple is in any sort of decline. This seems pretty average for the consumer tech giant as they patiently wait for their refresh cycles later in the year. The truly interesting part is that Huawei was able to sell as many phones as they did; a case study in causation without correlation.