iPhone sales are fine, new colors or not. | Image by Jon Rettinger
Times are tough, and according to the latest Counterpoint research, they are tough on smartphones too. Except iPhones.
Apple registered 10% growth despite the shrinking market
Week 20 of 2026 saw the overall smartphone market shrinking by 8%, while Apple did great — iPhone sales rose 10% year-over-year between May 11 and May 17, 2026.
It is now clear that memory prices will remain high for the rest of 2026, and OEMs have adjusted the playbook. To navigate these pressures, they are now implementing a mix of price increases, product launch realignments, and aggressive cost-optimization tactics, including devices ‘cutting corners on different features’ and more efficient channel management.
- Tarun Pathak, Research Director at Counterpoint Research
Even though week 20 marks the 9th consecutive week of the smartphone sales slump, there's one brand that outsells even Apple.
Huawei is thriving with a 23% year-over-year increase in sales
The smartphone market is shrinking, but Apple and Huawei are doing great. | Image by Counterpoint
Huawei is the second exception in the Counterpoint research with a massive 23% gain year-over-year.
Huawei is probably inside its own bubble and moving a few months late, compared to the regular market. The company shares the first place in China with a 20% market share.
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And given Huawei mainly focuses on the local market, due to the US ban, the company is much more flexible with securing RAM and other local hardware components fast and in bulk.
But eventually the shortage will hit Huawei too.
Samsung is hanging in there, but others are in free fall
Apple cannot avoid hiking prices longer. | Image by Sonny Dickson
Samsung has almost managed to break even compared to last year with just a 1% decrease in sales for the same period. The third, fourth, and fifth companies on this list are taking huge hits.
Oppo sales are down by 10%, followed by Xiaomi with a huge 17% slump and Vivo taking an even bigger hit with a 19% decrease.
What's going on? Is it AI?
Your AI agent is most likely the reason for the RAM shortage. | Image by Gemini
Sort of. The market-wide memory shortage will continue through the rest of 2026, forcing OEMs to increase the prices for the end customer. This new report comes mere hours after Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that price increases are coming to the company’s products due to the ongoing RAM shortage.
Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable. We’re doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we’ve been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable.
- Tim Cook, Apple CEO, June 2026
The main driver for the enormous demand is AI. Companies are investing heavily in their infrastructure, and this results in hardware prices skyrocketing. Google announced recently an 80 billion investment plan to scale its AI infrastructure, and the hardware for that must come from somewhere.
There was also an interesting experiment that researchers at the University of San Diego ran with Google's blessing. They used 20 old Pixel phones to create a small data center, and plan to scale the project to 2,000 phones in what they call Phone Cluster Computing. This could alleviate some of the pressure on hardware manufacturers but don't expect results anytime soon.
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Mariyan, a tech enthusiast with a background in Nuclear Physics and Journalism, brings a unique perspective to PhoneArena. His childhood curiosity for gadgets evolved into a professional passion for technology, leading him to the role of Editor-in-Chief at PCWorld Bulgaria before joining PhoneArena. Mariyan's interests range from mainstream Android and iPhone debates to fringe technologies like graphene batteries and nanotechnology. Off-duty, he enjoys playing his electric guitar, practicing Japanese, and revisiting his love for video games and Haruki Murakami's works.
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