China’s smartphone market continued to lose ground in the second quarter of 2026, with shipments falling for the fifth consecutive quarter.
According to IDC, smartphone shipments dropped 4.3% year-on-year to 66 million units between April and June.
The decline also dragged first-half shipments down 4.2% compared with the same period last year.
Huawei and Apple were the only major smartphone brands to record growth during the quarter. Huawei’s shipments rose 19.4%, while Apple posted an even stronger 24.4% increase.
Their performance stood out as most Android brands struggled with weaker demand after increasing prices or reducing lower-cost models to offset higher memory and component costs.
Huawei finished the quarter as China’s largest smartphone vendor with a 22.6% market share. Apple followed with 18.1%.
By comparison, Xiaomi’s shipments fell 21.7%, while Oppo and Vivo recorded declines of 9.7% and 11.4% respectively.
IDC said Huawei and Apple benefited from keeping prices stable while competitors passed higher costs on to consumers.
“Huawei and Apple held their prices steady while competitors were raising theirs, and that gave hesitant buyers a reason to go ahead and purchase in a quarter when most of the market was giving them a reason to wait,” said Arthur Guo, a senior analyst at IDC China.
The research firm attributed the market decline to higher prices for memory chips and other smartphone components, which began surging from late March.
Faced with high cost of production, many Android manufacturers either increased retail prices or reduced the availability of budget devices.
The market also lost support from government subsidy programmes that had helped sustain demand in previous quarters. At the same time, consumers were careful about spending, leading many to delay replacing their smartphones.
That weaker demand was also seen during China’s annual “618” shopping festival, where smartphone sales dropped by nearly 15% compared with a year earlier.
The slowdown is not limited to China, as global smartphone shipments also fell to their lowest second-quarter level since 2013, according to data from Counterpoint Research.
Samsung regained its position as the world’s leading smartphone vendor, revealing how competition at the top of the market continues even as overall demand remains weak.
