New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS): Riding on the success of the P20, Mate 20 and Nova series, Huawei on Wednesday said its smartphone shipments for 2018 exceeded 200 million units, a new all-time high for the Chinese phone maker.

Huawei surpassed Apple to become the world's second-largest smartphone seller in the world first in the second quarter of this year and then again in the third quarter with a global market share of 14.6 per cent, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

In the past eight years, Huawei's smartphone shipments have increased from three million units in 2010 to 200 million units in 2018, reflecting approximately a sixty-six-fold growth, the company said in a statement.

At present, more than 500 million consumers in more than 170 countries around the world are using Huawei smartphones, it added.

Compared to 2017, Huawei sold around 50 million more smartphones this year.

"Looking to the future, Huawei's consumer business will focus on the core concept of 'consumer-centric', and will dare to keep innovating, and make every effort to become a pioneer and leader in the next wave of the smartphone revolution," Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group, said in a statement.

Since its release in March, global shipments for Huawei P20 series have exceeded 16 million units, with female users accounting for nearly half of that number.

Within two months of the release of the Huawei Mate 20 series, it had already shipped over five million units, the statement said, ading that as of the end of 2018, the nova series has sold over 65 million units, making it the leader of Huawei's mid-range devices.