The Shenzhen-based firm would have become the largest smartphone manufacturer in the fourth quarter of 2019, but now it may take longer to achieve this goal, Shao Yang, Huawei's chief strategy officer of its consumer business group, said at CES Asia 2019 on Tuesday.
The firm, which is currently the second-largest smartphone vendor worldwide, is expected to overtake Samsung, the top vendor, by 2020. However, the US-led crackdown on the firm for political purposes has made it more challenging.
With 71.62 million in smartphone sales, the world's top vendor Samsung saw its market share shrink from 20.5 percent to 19.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, media reported in May, citing a Gartner report.
Huawei sold 58.4 million smartphones in the same period, up 44.5 percent year-on-year, the highest growth among the world's top five smartphone vendors, the report said.
Several Chinese smartphone vendors including Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo have been taking part in HongMeng OS testing lately, and its overall speed is 60 percent faster than Android OS, according to media reports.
This article originally appeared on the Global Times website.