China’s Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. somehow managed to increase its share of the global smartphone market in the second quarter after seeing strong sales growth, despite the specter of a U.S. government-led embargo hanging over it.

That’s according to the latest reckoning of the smartphone market from Gartner Inc. released today. Huawei, currently the world’s second-largest smartphone producer, saw its smartphone shipments top 58 million units in the last quarter, up 16.3% year over year, mostly thanks to booming sales in its home market.

Globally, the smartphone market declined, but sales were up in China thanks in no small part to Huawei. The company saw record sales in its home nation, rising 31% in the quarter, due to a series of promotions and what Gartner said was its “strong brand positioning.”

Huawei’s growth in the quarter is impressive because it comes after U.S. President Donald Trump blacklisted the company in May over security fears. The decision to place Huawei on a list of banned entities meant that U.S. firms are prohibited from doing business with it unless they obtain a special license to do so. However, U.S. firms were granted a 90-day reprieve soon after the ban was announced, and that was recently extended by another 90 days.

The ban, if and when it finally does take hold, will disrupt Huawei’s supply chain from hardware to software. Chipmakers such as Qualcomm Inc. will no longer be able to supply it with the processors that power its smartphones, for example, while Google LLC will be forced to stop providing access to the latest Android operating system updates.

Nonetheless, thanks to strong sales in the second quarter, Huawei saw its global market share increase to 15.8%, up from 13.3% one year ago. More than 58% of Huawei’s sales were in China, however, so it does look as if the trade embargo is having an impact on its international operations.

Still, it was a tough three months for the smartphone market overall. Gartner reported 367.9 million smartphone sales worldwide, down 1.7% from the previous quarter.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. retained its position as the number one smartphone seller in the world with 75.1 million devices sold, representing growth of 3.8%. Gartner said Samsung’s growth was down to increased demand for its entry-level and midrange smartphones.

“Demand for Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S10 started to weaken during the quarter, however, indicating that achieving growth in 2019 as a whole will be a challenge,” said Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner.

Third-place Apple Inc. suffered badly in the quarter, with iPhone sales falling 13.8% to just 38.52 million units. Gartner said this was because consumers were seeing few reasons to upgrade their expensive Apple hardware. As a result, Apple’s market share fell to 10.5%, down from 11.9% a year ago.

Image: Gartner