- Huawei captured a 20% market share in the first quarter, overtaking Apple to top the Chinese market as rising memory costs forced some rivals to hike prices.
- Omdia expects China's full-year smartphone shipments to drop by about 10%, compounding the severe double-digit decline seen in the market in February.
Weighed down by rising memory component costs, the smartphone market in the Chinese mainland continued its sluggish trend in the first quarter of 2026, with overall shipments edging down 1% year-on-year to 69.8 million units.
Huawei claimed a 20% market share with shipments of 13.9 million units, extending its strong momentum to successfully top the Chinese smartphone market, according to data released by Omdia on Tuesday.
Apple followed closely with 13.1 million units shipped and a 19% market share, having refrained from large-scale product price hikes in the first quarter, much like Huawei.
The two industry giants viewed the rising costs as an opportunity for expansion, making their products relatively more popular among consumers and driving their outperformance in the first quarter.
The top five in the market also included Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, with the top six handset makers now accounting for a combined 94% of the Chinese mainland market.
These leading brands have established competitive advantages in supply chain channels, technological research and development capabilities, system services, and ecosystem building.
This slight decline follows a more severe market contraction earlier this year, highlighting the ongoing demand challenges facing the world's largest smartphone market.
Impacted by factors such as the traditional consumption lull during the Lunar New Year holiday, domestic mobile phone shipments dropped 14.6% year-on-year to 16.79 million units in February, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).
Facing price hike pressures on mid-range and budget models due to rising costs, smartphone makers are pinning their hopes on AI agent features and foldable screen innovations to sustain overall demand.
However, due to the persistent impact of rising memory prices, Omdia projects that the Chinese mainland smartphone market will remain in a downward trend throughout 2026, with full-year shipments likely to fall by about 10%.
