By BitsFromBytes Research · Reviewed by Jordan Asante · Last updated October 31, 2026
Headline statistic. IDC counted 255.3 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the third quarter of 2026, 22.0% fewer than a year earlier and the steepest quarterly drop in its tracker. BitsFromBytes Research finds that Apple and Samsung held 37.0% of the Q3 2025 base but absorbed only 8.3% of the 72.2 million units lost.
Quick Answer: Smartphone makers shipped 255.3 million phones in Q3 2026, down 22.0% from 327.3 million a year earlier, per IDC’s preliminary data (October 14, 2026). IDC forecasts 2026 shipments down 16.7% to just over 1 billion units, with the average price up 27.6% to $581. In the United States, 91% of adults own a smartphone.
Download the dataset: smartphone-statistics.csv (zip): 185 rows, every figure on this page with its source document, URL and retrieval date. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link to this page.
Key Findings
- BitsFromBytes Research finds that Apple and Samsung were 37.0% of Q3 2025 shipments and 8.3% of the units lost by Q3 2026. They shipped 6.0 million fewer phones; Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo shipped 35.0 million fewer, 48.5% of the total loss from 33.7% of the base.
- BitsFromBytes Research finds a 37.5-point spread between 2026’s three price meters. IDC’s average selling price is forecast up 27.6%, Counterpoint’s tracker shows existing models up about 15% and new launches up 25%, and the U.S. smartphone price index fell 9.9% over twelve months. They measure different things and are not averaged.
- BitsFromBytes Research calculates that IDC’s 2026 forecast implies 1.055 billion units, about 212 million fewer than 2025. Dividing IDC’s $613 billion value by its $581 price gives the unit count; the implied 2025 price is $455.3, so the average phone costs $125.7 more.
- BitsFromBytes Research calculates that IDC’s iOS numbers imply a 2025 iOS share of 19.9% and a 2026 share of 23.6%. That is a 3.7-point gain, consistent with IDC’s own wording of “almost four percentage points”, and about 249 million iPhones in 2026.
- BitsFromBytes Research calculates that the mobile phone ownership gap between high-income and low-income economies is at least 42 points. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) puts high-income economies above 95% and low-income economies at 53%; the U.S. smartphone rate (91%, Pew) is a different base from ITU’s 82% world figure.
How Many Smartphones Were Shipped in Q3 2026?
255.3 million, per IDC’s preliminary Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker data published October 14, 2026. That is 22.0% below the 327.3 million IDC shows for Q3 2025. IDC’s own words: “the highest YoY decline to date of any quarter.” Shipments are sell-in (phones sent to retailers and carriers), not phones bought by consumers.
| Vendor | Q3 2026 (M units) | Q3 2026 share | Q3 2025 (M units) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung | 57.8 | 22.6% | 61.4 | −5.8% |
| Apple | 57.3 | 22.4% | 59.7 | −4.0% |
| Xiaomi | 30.7 | 12.0% | 43.4 | −29.2% |
| OPPO | 25.6 | 10.0% | 39.1 | −34.5% |
| vivo | 19.1 | 7.5% | 27.9 | −31.5% |
| Others | 64.8 | 25.4% | 96.0 | −32.5% |
| Total | 255.3 | 100.0% | 327.3 | −22.0% |
Source: IDC, preliminary data, October 14, 2026. Branded new devices only; refurbished units are excluded.
Which vendors lost the most?
Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo, and the long tail. BitsFromBytes Research subtracts each vendor’s Q3 2026 shipments from its Q3 2025 shipments. Samsung lost 3.6 million units and Apple 2.4 million, a combined 6.0 million. Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo lost 12.7, 13.5 and 8.8 million, 35.0 million together. Everyone outside the top five lost 31.2 million.
| Group | Share of Q3 2025 shipments | Units lost (M) | Share of units lost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apple + Samsung | 37.0% | 6.0 | 8.3% |
| Xiaomi + OPPO + vivo | 33.7% | 35.0 | 48.5% |
| Others | 29.3% | 31.2 | 43.2% |
Formula: base share = group Q3 2025 units ÷ 327.3; share of loss = group units lost ÷ 72.2, the sum of the six vendor-line losses. IDC’s totals give 72.0 (327.3 − 255.3); the 0.2 million gap is rounding, because the six Q3 2025 vendor lines add to 327.5. IDC’s published Q3 2025 shares for Apple and Samsung sum to 36.9%, 0.1 point under the 37.0% computed here from units.
A spec sheet cannot show this. A phone’s rated memory, camera and battery say nothing about whether its maker can still buy components at the old price. The shipment table is the closest thing to a test result: it shows which brands could keep supply on the shelf. IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo ties the pattern to exposure: “Chinese brands face a particularly difficult moment, as their exposure to low-end smartphones forces them to choose between protecting margins and defending volume.”
Do IDC and Counterpoint agree?
On direction, yes; on size, no. Counterpoint Research’s October 12, 2026 headline reads “Global Smartphone Shipments Hit a New Low with 20% YoY Decline, Lowest in 14 Years.” IDC says 22.0%. The gap is 2.0 points. Applied to IDC’s Q3 2025 base of 327.3 million, 2 points are 6.5 million units. That is an illustration only: Counterpoint’s own base is not in the page title, and its page body did not load when BitsFromBytes Research fetched it, so only the headline is used. The two figures are shown side by side and not averaged.
How Many Smartphones Will Ship in 2026?
Just over 1 billion, down 16.7%, per IDC’s August 26, 2026 forecast. IDC called it the steepest annual contraction the industry has recorded. One quarter earlier IDC had forecast −13.9%. For the second half of 2026 alone, IDC forecasts a 27.2% drop, against the 22.0% fall in Q3.
IDC attributes the downgrade to memory. In the Q3 release it says memory costs “surged approximately 350% since last year and are still rising,” with a low double-digit sequential increase in Q3 against roughly 50% to 100% in earlier quarters. In the August forecast it puts NAND and DRAM cost growth at over 300% year over year. IDC expects any recovery to be pushed to 2028 at the least.
What does IDC’s forecast imply for units and price?
About 1.055 billion units in 2026 against 1.267 billion in 2025. IDC forecasts a market value of $613 billion (up 6.3%) and an average selling price of $581 (up 27.6%). BitsFromBytes Research rebuilds the units from those two published numbers:
| Quantity | 2025 (implied) | 2026 (IDC forecast) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average selling price | $455.3 | $581 | +$125.7 |
| Market value | $576.7 billion | $613 billion | +$36.3 billion |
| Units | 1.267 billion | 1.055 billion | −212 million |
Formulas: 2026 units = $613 billion ÷ $581 = 1.055 billion; 2025 price = $581 ÷ 1.276; 2025 value = $613 billion ÷ 1.063; 2025 units = 1.055 ÷ (1 − 0.167). These are implied from IDC’s rounded figures, not IDC-published 2025 values, and they come out slightly above IDC’s own phrase “just over 1 billion”. IDC separately says the average handset costs “roughly $147 more than it did a couple of years ago.”
Which segments are still growing?
Foldables, and almost nothing else. IDC forecasts foldable shipments up 12.6% to 22.9 million units in 2026, then up 18% in 2027, and expects Apple to ship more than 17 million foldable iPhones by 2027 at an average price above $2,550. Against that, the 173 million smartphones priced below $100 that shipped in 2025 are in decline: IDC says the segment fell almost 60% in Q2 2026. HarmonyOS, Huawei’s operating system, is forecast to nearly triple to 51 million units. For what is confirmed about Apple’s folding phone, see our iPhone Fold tracker.
How Much Have Smartphone Prices Risen in 2026?
It depends on the meter. Three published measures of the same market point in different directions, and none of them is wrong.
| Meter | Reading | Scope | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average selling price | +27.6% to $581 | Global, 2026 forecast vs 2025, mix included | IDC, Aug 26, 2026 |
| Retail price, new launches | +25% | Global, vs year-ago models | Counterpoint, Sep 3, 2026 |
| Retail price, existing models | about +15% | Global, 2026 so far | Counterpoint, Sep 3, 2026 |
| Consumer Price Index, smartphones | −9.9% | U.S. urban consumers, Sep 2025 to Sep 2026 | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics |
BitsFromBytes Research puts the spread between the highest and lowest reading at 37.5 points (27.6 − (−9.9)). The scopes explain part of it: IDC’s average selling price changes when cheap phones disappear from the mix, Counterpoint tracks retail prices of models, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks a U.S. consumer index. The BLS table fetched for this page does not describe how the smartphone index is quality-adjusted, so this page does not attribute the gap to that method. Counterpoint’s figures are read from its page titles because the bodies did not load.
The BLS series shows more than one direction. Smartphones rose 0.4% from August to September 2026 but are down 9.9% over twelve months, against a 3.7% rise in all items, a 13.6-point gap. The wider telephone hardware group is down 12.7% over twelve months; wireless telephone services are up 3.2%.
Where have prices risen the most?
India (21%), then Asia Pacific (19%) and the Middle East and Africa (18%). The United States is lowest at 5%. These regional figures for existing models, year to date, come from Axis Intelligence, which relays Counterpoint’s tracker; the Counterpoint page body could not be fetched, so the figures are secondary and drawn in grey.
Check the price on the shelf before the price in the forecast. The same model can sit at a very different street price from its launch price within weeks; our Google Pixel 10 Pro discount post is one dated example. IDC’s Kiranjeet Kaur advises that buyers who cannot postpone a purchase are likely best served by holiday-quarter offers.
Android or iOS: Which Has More Share?
Android has about 69% of mobile web traffic; iOS has about 31%. StatCounter measured Android at 69.31% and iOS at 30.66% worldwide in September 2026, a ratio of 2.26 to 1. StatCounter’s page says it is based on over 3 billion monthly page views, so it measures web use, not devices sold. Linux and KaiOS were 0.01% each.
IDC measures something else: shipments. It forecasts Android shipments down 24.3% in 2026 and iOS shipments down 1.3%, lifting iOS to a record 23.6% of 2026 shipments. The two shares (30.66% of web traffic, 23.6% of annual shipments) are not comparable and are not blended: web traffic reflects the whole installed base of active phones, shipments reflect only one year of sales.
Do IDC’s iOS numbers add up?
Yes. BitsFromBytes Research tests the forecast for internal consistency. With 1.055 billion units in 2026 and a 23.6% iOS share, iOS shipments are about 249 million. A 1.3% fall means about 252 million in 2025. Against 1.267 billion total units in 2025, that is a 19.9% share, so the share gain is 3.7 points. IDC’s text says “almost four percentage points.” The check passes within rounding; it does not validate the forecast itself.
How Is Apple’s iPhone Business Doing?
iPhone net sales rose 21.7% to $54.25 billion in Apple’s fiscal third quarter, the quarter ended June 27, 2026, per Apple’s Form 8-K filed with the SEC. A year earlier the figure was $44.58 billion. For the nine months to June 27, iPhone net sales were $196.5 billion against $160.6 billion, up 22.4%. Total net sales for the quarter were $109.4 billion against $94.0 billion.
These are revenue figures, not units, and Apple does not report iPhone units. They also cover a different window from IDC: Apple’s fiscal third quarter is roughly April to June, while IDC’s Q3 is July to September, when it counted Apple shipments down 4.0%. BitsFromBytes Research does not put the two in one growth line. Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter, covering the IDC window, had not been reported at the time of writing.
How Many People Own a Smartphone?
In the United States, 91% of adults. Pew Research Center’s October 19, 2026 fact sheet reports that 91% of U.S. adults own a smartphone and 98% own a cellphone of some kind. The first Pew reading, in May 2011, was 35%, so ownership is up 56 points. The 2026 reading comes from 5,511 adults surveyed January 30 to June 18, 2026 (margin of error ±1.8 points). Ownership has been 91% in Pew’s June 2024, 2025 and 2026 readings.
Pew changed its survey mode in 2023 and again in 2024, so the series is not strictly continuous. Pew also reports that 16% of U.S. adults are “smartphone-only” internet users (a smartphone, no home broadband), against 8% in 2013 and a high of 20% in 2018.
How many people own a mobile phone worldwide?
82% of people aged 10 and over, per the ITU’s Facts and Figures 2025. That counts every mobile phone, including feature phones, so it is not a smartphone rate and is not compared directly with Pew’s 91%. High-income economies are above 95%, upper-middle-income economies above 90%, and low-income economies at 53%. BitsFromBytes Research puts the gap between high-income and low-income at at least 42 points, because ITU’s high-income figure is a floor.
In Africa, ITU reports 66% mobile phone ownership against 36% internet use. Globally, 78% of women and 87% of men aged 10 and over own a mobile phone (a gender parity score of 0.90), a gap of 9 points. For the people at the low end of that table, IDC’s forecast that sub-$100 phones are being cut from line-ups matters most. Our reviews of niche handsets, such as the Unihertz Jelly 2, show what is left at the small and cheap end, and how we test is described on the How We Test page.
Methodology
Sources (retrieved October 31, 2026). IDC’s October 14, 2026 press release and August 26, 2026 forecast blog; Apple’s Form 8-K for the quarter ended June 27, 2026 on SEC EDGAR; the BLS Consumer Price Index Table 2 for September 2026; the ITU Facts and Figures 2025 mobile phone ownership page; the Pew Research Center fact sheet of October 19, 2026; StatCounter Global Stats (September 2026); and Counterpoint Research’s October 12 and September 3, 2026 insight pages. Every URL is in the CSV.
Labels. Apple, BLS, ITU and Pew figures are filings, government series or survey results (is_primary = TRUE). IDC, Counterpoint and StatCounter figures are measurement-firm estimates or forecasts and are labeled as such. Counterpoint’s page bodies did not render when fetched, so only the headline figures in its titles are used, and the regional price rows (is_primary = FALSE) are relayed from Axis Intelligence’s page of October 20, 2026. Rows marked bfb_calculated = TRUE are BitsFromBytes Research calculations.
Lead source. Axis Intelligence’s smartphone statistics page was used to find primary documents, with the site owner’s approval. Every Axis figure repeated here was re-read in the primary document except the Counterpoint regional price rows. Axis’s StatCounter figures (69.17% and 30.81%) differ from the live StatCounter page (69.31% and 30.66%); the live values are used. Axis’s Q3 2025 shipments (322.7 million, IDC’s first print) differ from the 327.3 million in IDC’s October 2026 table; the restated value is used throughout.
Formulas.
- Units lost = vendor Q3 2025 shipments − Q3 2026 shipments; group sums as shown.
- Base share = group Q3 2025 units ÷ 327.3; share of loss = group units lost ÷ 72.2.
- Implied 2026 units = $613 billion ÷ $581; implied 2025 units = 1.055 ÷ (1 − 0.167).
- Implied 2025 price = $581 ÷ 1.276; implied 2025 value = $613 billion ÷ 1.063.
- Implied iOS units 2026 = 1.055 billion × 23.6%; 2025 = 2026 ÷ (1 − 0.013); 2025 share = 2025 iOS ÷ 1.267 billion.
- Price spread = 27.6 − (−9.9) = 37.5; real BLS gap = −9.9 − 3.7 = −13.6.
- Ownership gaps: 95 − 53 = 42 (at least); 87 − 78 = 9; 91 − 35 = 56.
- iPhone growth = $54,252M ÷ $44,582M − 1 = 21.7%; nine months = $196,515M ÷ $160,561M − 1 = 22.4%.
Limitations. IDC’s Q3 data is preliminary and its vendor lines add to 327.5 million against a stated 327.3 million. IDC’s 2026 figures are forecasts. Shipments are sell-in. Counterpoint’s figures are headline-level. StatCounter measures web traffic, not devices. ITU counts all mobile phones, not smartphones. Pew’s series changes survey mode in 2023 and 2024. The BLS index is a U.S. consumer measure.
About This Dataset
smartphone-statistics.csv is the fact table behind every number and chart: 185 rows in long format (one observation per row) from IDC, Apple, BLS, ITU, Pew, StatCounter, Counterpoint and BitsFromBytes Research calculations, covering 2011 to 2026 with most rows from Q3 2026.
Columns: row_id, metric, value, unit, as_of_date, item, scope, qualifier, period, source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, bfb_calculated, method_note. Values are raw numbers with ISO dates. License: CC BY 4.0, free to reuse with a link to this page.
How to Cite This Page
APA: BitsFromBytes Research. (2026, October 31). Smartphone statistics 2026: Shipments, prices, ownership and the memory squeeze. Bits From Bytes. https://bitsfrombytes.com/smartphone-statistics/
MLA: BitsFromBytes Research. “Smartphone Statistics 2026: Shipments, Prices, Ownership and the Memory Squeeze.” Bits From Bytes, 31 Oct. 2026, bitsfrombytes.com/smartphone-statistics/.
Chicago: BitsFromBytes Research. “Smartphone Statistics 2026: Shipments, Prices, Ownership and the Memory Squeeze.” Bits From Bytes, October 31, 2026. https://bitsfrombytes.com/smartphone-statistics/.
FAQ
Why did smartphone shipments fall in 2026?
IDC attributes the fall to memory costs: it says they rose approximately 350% from a year earlier by Q3 2026, and that vendors passed the cost to buyers who are keeping phones longer.
How much will the average smartphone cost in 2026?
IDC forecasts an average selling price of $581, up 27.6% from 2025. That is a global average including mix shifts, not the price of any one phone.
When will smartphone shipments recover?
IDC expects growth to be constrained through 2027, with any possible recovery pushed to 2028 at the least.
How many Americans own a smartphone?
91% of U.S. adults, per Pew Research Center’s survey of 5,511 adults conducted January 30 to June 18, 2026.
Last updated: October 31, 2026. Review trigger: Apple’s fiscal fourth-quarter results (reported as scheduled for November 2, 2026; date not confirmed from an Apple document), the BLS October CPI release (BLS says November 10, 2026), IDC’s next preliminary quarterly data (Q4 2026, expected early 2027), any restatement of IDC’s Q3 2026 figures, and StatCounter’s October 2026 reading. Errors are corrected under our corrections policy. More data pages: statistics hub, VPN statistics, tools. Related: Tech giants and the future beyond smartphones.
