China’s smartphone market shipped about 57.9 million phones in Q3 2026, down 15.4% from last year, according to IDC’s preliminary figures. It’s the sixth straight quarter of year-over-year (YoY) decline, and a sharp speed-up from the roughly 4% drop in the first half.
The culprit is – you guessed it – high pricing for memory: chips that give a phone its RAM and storage. IDC says steep cost rises for memory and other components have pushed up phone prices and forced phone makers to change what goes inside them. Android brands and the smaller long-tail names are feeling it most.
IDC sums up the quarter as volume down, prices up. New phones launched at higher prices, and buyers still getting used to them are holding on to their phones longer. It’s the same squeeze behind the 20% global drop in Counterpoint’s numbers, out a day earlier.
Despite the trend, Huawei managed to buck it. Its shipments rose 17.3%, and its share climbed to 21.1% from 15.2% a year ago, as the table below shows. IDC credits a wide spread of phone types and relatively restrained price rises.
| Brand | Q3 2026 share | Q3 2025 share | Change, year over year | Change, quarter over quarter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Huawei | 21.1% | 15.2% | 17.3% | −17.6% |
| Apple | 17.8% | 15.8% | −4.3% | −15.1% |
| Oppo | 15.5% | 15.9% | −17.6% | −15.5% |
| Vivo | 15.3% | 17.2% | −24.9% | −16.1% |
| Xiaomi | 13.8% | 14.7% | −20.4% | −2.2% |
| Honor | 13.0% | 14.4% | −24.2% | 0.9% |
| Wiko | 0.8% | 2.6% | −74.0% | −37.5% |
| Lenovo | 0.4% | 0.3% | 1.1% | 5.1% |
| Samsung | 0.4% | 0.6% | −45.0% | 106.5% |
| ZTE | 0.3% | 0.5% | −52.0% | −12.0% |
| Others | 1.7% | 2.8% | −48.7% | −15.0% |
| Total | 100.0% | 100.0% | −15.4% | −12.5% |
Meanwhile, Apple stood in second with 17.8%, though its shipments slipped 4.3%. IDC says the new iPhones were received better than expected, but Apple has fewer models this year. That’s a big swing from the Q2, when IDC had Apple up 24.4% as some buyers grabbed iPhone 17s early, expecting the new models to cost more.
The other big Chinese brands all fell, by between about 18% and 25%. Honor was the only one of the top brands to ship more than in the previous quarter, which IDC reads as a sign of a rebound. And Samsung, 1st worldwide by Counterpoint’s count, is only 9th in China with 0.4%.
IDC doesn’t see relief any time soon. Memory and other parts are expected to stay expensive for the next few quarters and phone prices to keep rising, so even a crowded lineup of new phones won’t lift Q4. Current trends may continue through most of 2027. The big brands, with strong pull and smaller price hikes, are best placed to win buyers in the meantime. That is, when all the brands raise their prices, the one that raises prices least wins.
