Guess which company is responsible for the most smartphones shipped in Q2 2015 and which holds the lead for market share. If you said ‘Apple’ with a confident grin, you’d be wrong. Samsung, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics, is still the current global leader in terms of units shipped and market share. Apple is second place, so your optimism wasn’t too misplaced.

But the real excitement in this report isn’t to be found between the two titan frontrunners, that battle’s been going on for a while. The fight for third place, which Microsoft has customarily hung out, is where things are happening. And by things we mean that Chinese smartphone maker Huawei has knocked Microsoft down a considerable peg. That’s got to sting for Redmond.

Huawei has shipped 10 million more handsets for the second quarter of 2015 compared to the same time last year at the same time that Microsoft has dipped by almost 23 million handsets shipped. In terms of actual hardware sent to market, Huawei managed 30.6 million units while Microsoft sent 27.8 million – down from 50.3 million last year.

Which means that for the first time, Huawei has snagged more market share than Redmond, scooping up 7% of the market – up from 4.8%. At the same time, Microsoft’s claim has dropped from 11.8% to 6.4% year-on-year.

Strategy Analytics’ director Ken Hyer said “Huawei is rising fast in all regions of the world, particularly China where its 4G models, such as the Mate7, are proving wildly popular. Huawei has finally overtaken Microsoft to become the world’s third largest mobile phone vendor for the first time ever.”

Although we said earlier that there’s little interesting happening between the top two companies, Samsung is having some difficulty with that top spot according to the report. And Apple is nipping at the South Korean company’s heels, hoovering up almost all the market share that Samsung has dropped. That’s worth keeping an eye on.

Source: Strategy Analytics