{"id":394219,"date":"2026-04-15T22:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394219\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T22:57:11","slug":"this-latest-global-smartphone-market-report-puts-samsung-first-and-apple-second-in-q1-2026-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394219\/","title":{"rendered":"This latest global smartphone market report puts Samsung first and Apple second in Q1 2026 sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

After undoubtedly leading the world in handset sales last year<\/a>, Apple started 2026 on a similarly high note, edging out Samsung with a 21 percent market share on the back of a 5 percent increase in volume from Q1 2025.Wait, so who’s the champion after all?Because Counterpoint Research and the IDC can’t seem to agree on the answer to that question, I think it’s only fair to use Omdia as an official tiebreaker and give Samsung the Q1 trophy for another year. Interestingly, Omdia actually estimated Samsung’s advantage<\/a> over silver medalist Apple at a healthy 2 percent in market share for the January-March 2026 timeframe (up from just 1 percent in Q1 2025).<\/p>\n

\"Top <\/p>\n

Samsung is ahead of Apple in the latest global smartphone market report. | Image by IDC<\/p>\n

In IDC’s vendor hierarchy, Samsung<\/a> holds a modest Q1 2026 lead of 0.6 percent in market share and 1.7 million unit shipments over Apple<\/a>, but somewhat surprisingly, that also represents an improvement from an even humbler advantage of 0.5 percent and 1.5 million units back during the first three months of 2025.<\/p>\n

Another interesting and somewhat surprising aspect of this new study is that it puts both Samsung and Apple’s sales numbers at higher levels than this time last year, despite the market as a whole shrinking by a worrying 4.1 percent.<\/p>\n

The first decline in nearly three years… and the worst is yet to come<\/p>\n

Here’s another thing the IDC, Counterpoint Research, and Omdia can’t seem to (completely) agree on. While one of those research firms believes smartphone shipments went up (by 1 percent) in Q1 2026 compared to the same period of last year, the other two claim the market was down.<\/p>\n

The IDC’s estimated 4.1 percent decline is a little smaller than Counterpoint’s 6 percent downswing reported last week, but even the more optimistic of these two companies expects things to get significantly worse over the next few quarters.<\/p>\n

The industry’s first dip since mid-2023 is described as a “mild precursor for what lies ahead in 2026”, and of course, rising memory chip costs are largely to blame for an avalanche<\/a> of product price hikes<\/a> that’s likely to cause massive drops in consumer demand around the world and across brands.The S26 Ultra and the iPhone 17 series drove the growth of the top two vendorsYes, ladies and gents, the Galaxy S26 Ultra<\/a> is a certified hit now, only needing a few weeks of availability to generate strong enough demand to keep Samsung above Apple… according to the IDC.<\/p>\n

\"Apple <\/p>\n

The iPhone 17 family is likely to propel Apple to the number one spot in the global vendor chart at the end of the year. | Image by PhoneArena<\/p>\n

No words on the Galaxy S26<\/a> and S26 Plus<\/a>, which probably means their initial sales results were not great, but apparently, the mid-range Galaxy A family is slowly getting some of its mojo back after a few unfortunate years, crucially contributing to Samsung’s latest market-leading performance as well.What is everyone else doing?<\/p>\n

Struggling, apparently, and it definitely has a lot to do with the prices that went up in various regions around the world over the last couple of months. Alas, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo may need to make even more of their products even more expensive soon, which will undoubtedly cause all their sales numbers to drop even further.<\/p>\n

Intriguingly, however, a number of vendors outside the top five are highlighted as strong Q1 2026 performers, including Honor, Huawei, and Motorola, so it will certainly be interesting to see if any of these “smaller” players can pull ahead of Xiaomi, Oppo, or Vivo over the next few quarters. If you ask me, that’s going to be impossible to pull off for someone like Motorola after its recent price increases, but Huawei and Honor definitely have a chance to continue performing well, especially in their domestic market.<\/p>\n

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View Full Bio<\/p>\n

\n Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian’s passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for ‘adequate’ over ‘overpriced’.\n <\/p>\n

Read the latest from Adrian Diaconescu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After undoubtedly leading the world in handset sales last year, Apple started 2026 on a similarly high note,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[85,46,321,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-394219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}