Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies Co has surpassed Apple Inc for the first time as the world's second-largest smartphone vendor in June and July, a new report said.

According to the latest research by consultancy Counterpoint Research, Huawei has overtaken Apple in global smartphone sales consistently in June and July. With August sales looking strong for the Chinese vendor, a hat-trick for Huawei could be on the cards.

Peter Richardson, research director at Counterpoint, said this is a significant milestone for Huawei, the largest Chinese smartphone brand with a growing global presence. It speaks volumes for this primarily network infrastructure vendor on how far it has grown in the consumer mobile handset space in the last three to four years.