China’s smartphone shipments came in at roughly 66 million units in the second quarter of 2026, down 4.3% year over year and the fifth straight quarter of decline, according to new data from IDC.
The research group says rising memory and component costs pushed most Android vendors to raise prices, which cooled upgrade demand. Huawei and Apple were the exceptions, growing close to 20% and 25% respectively.
Apple now has 18.1% of China’s smartphone market. That’s up from 13.9% in the second quarter of 2025 for 24.4% annual growth.
The only smartphone company ahead of Apple in the Chinese market is China-based Huawei. It has 22.6% of the market as of the second quarter of 2026.
IDC says Huawei and Apple moved in the opposite direction for reasons that were just as concrete. Both held prices steady while the rest of the Android field raised them, and both layered on targeted promotions.
Huawei kept widening its lineup to cover more of the market, while Apple’s early signaling of price increases on its second-half products pulled some buyers forward into the iPhone 17 series sooner than they might have bought otherwise. Strong brand pull helped as well, opines IDC.
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Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
