Here we are, another story about Huawei and all the controversy surrounding them. I know I know. It seems like a lot, and it is. But it is incredibly important. However, today I wont talk about Huawei, rather their 5G and the race to be the first country to fully deliver 5G. But first, I do need to explain some of the history of Huawei and how they reached their position.
In 2018, Samsung had the highest shipment volume, like today, with 292.3 million, Apple was at 208.0, and Huawei was at 206 million. With a market share of 20.8, Apple at 14.9, and Huawei with 14.7. Samsung lost .9 percent share from 2017, Apple gained .2, and Huawei gained 4.2. Staggering compared to the other two smartphone manufacturers. And if you add all that up, and look at the shipment volumes from 2017 to 18, Samsung lost .8%, Apple lost 3.2%, and Huawei gained 33.6%. Which is staggering.
If you skimmed through that article to escape the math, basically Huawei was on a steep climb. With 108.5 billion coming in, Huawei is putting lots of it into R&D, with nearly half of their total staff in dedicated to the department. Not to mention that Huawei operates in China, allowing them to hire good engineers dirt cheap. Considering this, there's no wonder that China is ahead in 5G. China is expected to fully launch 5G in 2020. 5 years ahead of the rest of the world. And this is where things start to get messy. Everyone wants 5G. For us the consumers, we'd be able to download 2 hour movies in under 4 seconds. Compare that to the 6 minute wait that we have with 4G.
For the governments, reaching 5G means adding 20 million jobs to the economy and 3.5 TRILLION to the GDP. 3.5 trillion. Everyone wants a piece of that pie, which leads us to The Race to 5G. China has control, and could slow down other countries from reaching that goal as well. For example, China could put a ban on Apple the same way the US banned Huawei. Doing this could mean Apple losing out on a third of their market. Apple has around 900 million users worldwide, with 300 million in China. Pushing the US back even further. However, that is unlikely now that the US un-banned Huawei. Now we could see negations between multiple countries and China. And everything's on the table. We could see countries manipulate tariffs and even laws to get 5G sooner than other countries. Like I said, 3.5 trillion.
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