The end of the year seems to be the best time for companies to reflect on their performances and pat themselves on the back for a job well done. Last year for example, LG was happy to have sold 450,000 LG V10 units in 45 days despite a release in a few limited markets. This year, it's Huawei's turn to puff its feathers and flaunt its numbers in front of everyone: the P9 and P9 Plus have shipped over 10M units worldwide. Hooray!

The P9 and P9 Plus were announced back in April and hailed as Huawei's flagship phones and some of the best hardware the company could put together. Aside from the octa-core processor, 3/4GB of RAM, aluminum body, USB-C port, fingerprint reader, IR blaster, and nice 5.2" and 5.5" displays, the two phones benefitted from a (vaguely defined) partnership with Leica that yielded a SUMMARIT H 1:2.2/27 dual lens setup on the back. The result was a phone that looked good, worked well, garnered a lot of praise for Huawei, and took great photos, even if they weren't completely outstanding.

And with Huawei's marketing push and immense effort to expand its presence beyond its home turf of China, the P9 and P9 Plus were able to sell like hotcakes in many markets, surpassing 2.6M in the first 6 weeks and becoming the first Huawei flagship series to crack the 10M shipments. They also helped the company reach over 33M shipments in Q3 of 2016 (according to IDC) and maintain a nice growth rate despite a stagnant smartphone market.

I think this calls for an extra large champagne bottle at the Huawei end-of-year party and a round of chocolate shots for every employee.

Source: Huawei