China's Huawei will unveil its flagship new smartphone, the Honor 8, and a bigger version, the Honor Note 8, in San Francisco on Aug. 16. The release comes a few days after the launch of Samsung's Galaxy Note 7.

Huawei has already unveiled the Honor Note 8 at a media event in Beijing on Aug. 1, a day before Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 7.

Chinese smartphone makers at first conquered their domestic market for cheap phones before branching out into more high-end models on the global stage.

According to market researcher IDC, Samsung leads the global market by selling 77 million smartphones with a 22.5 percent market share in the second quarter of this year. Apple’s global market share dropped 2.1 percentage points on-year to 11.8 percent, not too far ahead of Huawei's 9.4 percent.

Unless the iPhone 7, set for release next month, proves a massive hit, Apple could lose its No. 2 status to the Chinese upstart.

Newcomers Oppo and Vivo are also catching up fast. Their global market shares rose from 2.8 percent and 2.7 percent in the second quarter of 2015 to 6.6 percent and 4.8 percent this second quarter.
Chinese smartphone makers have already overtaken Samsung and Apple in China and India. According to market researcher Counterpoint, Oppo's market share in China rose to 22.9 percent in June to top the market, while Huawei ranked second with 17.4 percent and Vivo third at 12 percent.

Apple and Samsung, meanwhile, saw their shares of the Chinese market fall to nine percent and 6.8 percent.

In India, Chinese smartphone makers’ share rose from 21 percent in the first quarter to 27 percent in the second.