Mainland China smartphone market shipments decline 2% in 2Q26

Mainland China’s smartphone market declined 2% year-over-year (YoY) in 2Q 2026, with shipments reaching 66.1 million units, according to Omdia’s latest research. The decline was slightly milder than the 4% drop recorded in the global market. As rising memory costs continue to exert pressure, market polarization is intensifying, with vendors that have stronger premium product portfolios further solidifying their market positions. Huawei extended its market share lead, capturing 23% of the market, supported by its new product launches and a stable pricing strategy. Apple ranked second, shipping 12.4 million units and capturing a 19% share. Its shipments and market share in mainland China reached record highs for a second quarter. Despite continued cost pressures, other leading vendors demonstrated strong operational resilience. OPPO (including OnePlus and realme) shipped 10.6 million units to ranked third place with a 16% share. vivo followed in fourth place, with 10.5 million units shipped, and Xiaomi ranked fifth with 8.2 million units shipped and a 12% market share.

“In response to rising memory costs, vendors have adopted strategies aligned with their product positioning, portfolio, and business operation, leading to a divergence in short-term shipment performance,” said Hayden Hou, Principal Analyst at Omdia. “Huawei’s continuous market share growth during the first half of 2026 is driven not only by the resilient demand in the premium segment but also by its own competitive advantages. Huawei has maintained a relatively stable pricing posture and continued to reinforce the competitiveness of both its entry-level and flagship series. This has generated favorable market responses to new models, including the Pura X Max and Enjoy 90 Pro Max. Furthermore, Huawei’s strong research and development (R&D) capability and deep alignment with domestic supply chains have helped the company remain resilient amid cost volatility. Apple, on the other hand, maintained stable pricing of iPhone despite price adjustments from competitors and its own other product categories. This encouraged channel restocking and lifted consumer demand. Meanwhile, other leading vendors have also adjusted their commercial playbooks to better reconcile volume targets with profitability goals.”

Lucas Zhong, Senior Analyst at Omdia, noted, “Despite market headwinds, smartphone vendors continue to increase their investments in AI innovation. HONOR is deploying agentic operating system (OS), while ZTE and ByteDance are deepening their collaboration to advance R&D for AI-capable smartphone. AI agents are evolving from standalone features into system-level capabilities. Development of AI-capable smartphones will increasingly focus on inter-app collaboration, end-to-end task execution, and deeper integration with third-party ecosystems. As partnerships among smartphone vendors, internet platforms, and foundation model providers deepen, the rollout of AI-native OS and agentic capabilities is accelerating. This signals that the AI-capable smartphone competition is expanding beyond hardware specifications and model size to include system-level capabilities, ecosystem integration, and user-level personalization.”

“Amid continued pressure from rising memory costs, mainland China smartphone shipments are projected to decline by 6% YoY in 2026, while remaining more resilient than the global market. Cost and competitive pressures are creating an opportunity for vendors to recalibrate the trade-off between market share and profit margin, leading them to optimize product portfolios, adjust channel strategies, and redesign supply chains.” added Hou. “Demand remains relatively stable, although consumers are expected to be more cautious about upgrading their devices. Clear product positioning, targeted hardware upgrades, and differentiated user experiences will therefore be the critical levers for vendors to sustain a competitive edge.”

Omdia