Apple reached a record 20% of the global smartphone market in the second quarter of 2026, while overall shipments fell 11% year over year to their weakest Q2 since 2013. Counterpoint Research’s latest tally, dated Monday, frames the result as the clearest sign yet that the industry’s downturn has reshuffled the pecking order at the top while quietly erasing the bottom.
Samsung reclaimed the global lead with a 24% share. Only Apple and Samsung grew among the world’s top five brands. The remaining majors are being squeezed by a memory supply crisis that has pulled DRAM and NAND capacity away from phones and into AI chips. Counterpoint now expects that crisis to drag full-year 2026 shipments down 13.9% to 1.08 billion units, a downward revision from its February forecast of 12.4%.
The Quarter in Numbers
The second quarter marked the steepest non-pandemic contraction in Counterpoint’s records. Apple grew 3% year over year, the only major manufacturer to avoid raising smartphone prices during the quarter. Samsung’s shipments climbed fastest among the top five as pricing and regional dynamics worked in its favor.
Three figures capture the spread. Apple hit a record high share of 20%. Samsung reclaimed the lead it had ceded earlier in the year with 24%. The industry’s overall volume dropped to its weakest Q2 since 2013.
The industry contraction is severe enough that Counterpoint now treats consolidation as a baseline scenario rather than a tail risk. Apple’s price discipline let it grow share without raising bills on buyers. Samsung’s pricing and competitive dynamics in certain regions drove the strongest growth among the top five.
| Brand | Q2 2026 share | YoY shipment change |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung | 24% | Strongest growth among top five |
| Apple | 20% (record) | +3% |
| Other top-five brands | n/a | All declined |
| Global total | n/a | -11% |
Why the Numbers Cratered
The cause is a single commodity: memory. Counterpoint’s 2026 smartphone shipment forecast reports that mobile LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 prices in the second quarter of 2026 are on track to treble versus the fourth quarter of 2025. LPDDR4 supply is set to fall more than 40% across the year as semiconductor fabs reallocate wafer starts toward high-bandwidth memory and server DRAM used in AI accelerators.
The redirection has been visible for months. Apple CEO Tim Cook warned on the company’s May 2026 earnings call that memory costs would be “significantly higher” in the following quarter because manufacturers were diverting output to AI chips. “Beyond the June quarter,” Cook said, “memory costs will drive an increasing impact on our business.” That warning came before Counterpoint’s latest data showed the acceleration.
Smartphones use a fraction of the world’s DRAM output, but they use the most price-sensitive kind: low-power LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 chips that go into everything from $100 Android handsets to the latest flagships. When AI buildouts pull capacity toward HBM stacks in data centers, phones that depend on cheap mobile DRAM feel it first. Smartphone wholesale prices had already risen 14% in the first quarter of 2026, Counterpoint said.
Lead times on new fab capacity run into years. Counterpoint expects the squeeze to persist through the second half of 2027, long after the current quarter’s phone launches are in buyers’ hands.
Apple and Samsung Pull Ahead of the Wreckage
Two factors separated the winners from the rest. Apple and Samsung both run integrated supply chains with long-standing relationships at the major memory makers. Both also sell devices at price points where memory is a smaller share of the bill of materials.
The premium segment is proving more resilient across the industry, and Apple’s 3% growth in a market that fell 11% is the cleanest example. “The memory crisis is the most disruptive supply-side event the smartphone industry has ever faced,” Counterpoint Principal Analyst Yang Wang said. “Unlike demand-driven slowdowns, such as seen during COVID and 2022-23, the current contraction will not respond to pricing, channel and product planning adjustments.”
The global memory crisis has now overtaken every other factor as the single biggest drag on the smartphone industry. What started as a components issue last year is now a full-blown demand issue.
Counterpoint Senior Analyst Shilpi Jain, on the Q2 2026 results.
The Sub-$150 Phone Is Vanishing
The damage is concentrated at the bottom of the market. LPDDR4 supply is set to decline more than 40% in 2026, the kind of input that goes into the cheapest Android handsets. Counterpoint’s outlook warns that certain sub-$150 price tiers face effective permanent ejection from the market.
The brands exposed to that segment are taking the largest hits. Xiaomi’s 19% Q1 decline was the steepest among the top five. Counterpoint now forecasts Xiaomi’s full-year shipments down 28% as the company confronts a fundamental question about economic viability in the entry-level market. Transsion, whose lineup sits almost entirely below $150, is forecast to fall 32%.
Huawei is the only Chinese brand Counterpoint expects to grow shipments in 2026. The company grew 1% in the first quarter after deliberately holding prices to gain share in the low and mid tiers. That single-digit gain comes at the cost of margins the larger players are no longer willing to absorb.
The exit is not framed as temporary. Counterpoint describes the sub-$150 segment as facing effective permanent ejection from the market in some regions. Once a price tier becomes structurally unprofitable at current memory costs, the OEMs that supplied it tend to move upmarket. The sub-$150 tier may not return when memory normalizes, Counterpoint argues.
Apple’s Own Margin Test Comes Next
Apple has so far avoided raising iPhone prices through the first half of 2026, the only major manufacturer to hold the line. Counterpoint credits stable memory supplies and healthy gross margins that made price hikes unnecessary. Apple’s iPhone revenue in the fiscal second quarter ended March 28, 2026 reached a March-quarter record of $57 billion, up 22% from a year earlier, on the strength of the iPhone 17 family, per the company’s Q2 2026 earnings release.
That protection has a limit. Cook said in May that the June quarter would mark the start of materially higher memory costs in Apple’s own results. He said the impact would only deepen thereafter. Apple can absorb some of that hit thanks to its scale and 49.3% gross margin. Competitors with thinner margins and commodity RAM exposure are already passing costs on.
The strategic question is whether Apple holds prices and lets margins compress, or raises prices and lets share compress. Each path has a cost. Apple’s record 20% share was earned in part by being the only brand that did not have to make that trade yet.
Recovery Has a Date, and a Geopolitical Asterisk
Counterpoint expects the smartphone market to rebound in 2028. Supply normalization, pent-up demand, fading inflationary pressure, and the next major upgrade wave all factor into that call. The commercial launch of 6G networks in pioneer markets including China, Japan, and South Korea by the end of the decade would provide a further catalyst. The maturity of AI-native devices rounds out the case.
Before any of that arrives, the industry’s baseline is consolidation. The Iran conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz add a geopolitical dimension to the downturn, Counterpoint said, though macroeconomic headwinds are expected to be materially less severe than the post-Ukraine inflationary shock of 2022 and 2023. The brands that emerge from the slump with intact portfolios, the firm said, will be those that used the crisis to sharpen their lineups rather than simply survive it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did global smartphone shipments fall in Q2 2026?
Counterpoint Research attributes the 11% year-over-year decline to a memory supply crisis. Mobile DRAM and NAND prices are climbing as semiconductor fabs reallocate capacity toward AI chips, with LPDDR4 and LPDDR5 prices set to treble in Q2 2026 versus Q4 2025.
What is Apple’s current global smartphone market share?
Apple captured a record 20% of global smartphone shipments in Q2 2026. Counterpoint said Apple’s shipments grew 3% year over year while the broader market contracted 11%.
Which smartphone brands are most exposed to the memory shortage?
Counterpoint forecasts Xiaomi shipments down 28% for full-year 2026 and Transsion down 32%, the steepest declines among major brands. Both rely heavily on the sub-$150 price tiers that Counterpoint says face effective permanent ejection from the market.
Will iPhone prices go up in 2026?
Apple has not raised iPhone prices through the first half of 2026, the only major manufacturer to hold the line. CEO Tim Cook has warned that memory costs will drive an increasing impact on Apple’s business beyond the June quarter, leaving the question unresolved.
When will the smartphone market recover?
Counterpoint Research expects a rebound in 2028, supported by supply normalization, pent-up demand, and the next major upgrade wave. The squeeze in mobile DRAM supply is expected to persist through the second half of 2027.
