Huawei's smartphone shipment soars 66 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2019, lifting its market share to a record high of 42 percent, latest data by market research company Canalys showed Wednesday. 

It comes against the backdrop that the Chinese tech giant has been placed on the U.S. Commerce Department's blacklist since May, which effectively bars its American suppliers from selling parts and software to the company. 

While the total sales of smartphones still shrank in the Chinese market by 3 percent in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, Huawei smartphones made up 41.5 million of the 97.8 million shipped in the period. 

The growth of Huawei, which is now the world’s No.2 smartphone maker, came at the expense of main rivals Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple, which together accounted for 50 percent of the market in the third quarter, down from 64 percent a year earlier. 

"Huawei opened a huge gap between itself and other vendors,” said Nicole Peng, Canalys vice president of mobility. “Its dominant position gives Huawei a lot of power to negotiate with the supply chain and to increase its wallet share within channel partners.” 

The third quarter sales also mark Apple’s weakest quarter in China for five years, said Peng. 

However, she added that Apple received a boost from the launch of the iPhone 11 in September, with customers willing to wait two to three weeks to receive shipments of the newer models.  

Huawei said last week it had sold more than 200 million phones globally in 2019, 64 days earlier than in 2018. 

The company’s profits remain resilient despite pressure from the United States, with revenue jumping 27percent in the third quarter. 

Its flagship Mate 30 Pro 4G version, which Huawei unveiled in September, was not a big factor in its Q3 success, Canalys said, with most people waiting for the 5G version to launch later this year. 

"Huawei is in a strong position to consolidate its dominance further amid 5G network rollout, given its tight operator relationships in 5G network deployment, and control over key components such as local network compatible 5G chipsets compared with local peers,” said Canalys’ Peng. 

"This puts significant pressure on Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, which find it very hard to make any breakthrough.”

(With input from Reuters)