Huawei says smartphone shipments grew by 26% last quarter

China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd said third-quarter smartphone shipments jumped 26 percent year-on-year, doubling devices shipped to the high-margin premium market dominated by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc. Shenzhen-based Huawei, the world’s third-biggest smartphone supplier after the dominant pair, shipped 16.8 million smartphones globally in the quarter ended Sept. 30, according to company data. About a quarter of those were mid- to high-end models, more than twice as many as the same period last year. “We are breaking our bottlenecks of mid- to high-end models step by step, especially in overseas markets,” Huawei consumer business group marketing executive Shao Yang told Reuters in an interview. Huawei, like Chinese rivals Lenovo Group Ltd and ZTE Corp, is better known for selling low- and mid-priced handsets in emerging markets than high-end models in developed countries.