It's no longer a secret that the mobile industry is in a bad place from a volume standpoint, but surprisingly (or not), that's not stopping the world's top smartphone vendors from improving a different (and arguably more important) aspect of their business.
Yes, global smartphone revenue is up in a quarter that saw shipment figures go down by a massive 20 percent from Q3 2025, and there are no prizes for guessing what company (comfortably) leads this particular hierarchy.
iPhones are responsible for half of the money generated around the world
Let that sink in. Despite ranking behind arch-rival Samsung in Q3 2026 smartphone sales, with "only" a 22 percent slice of the pie, Apple made 50 percent of global revenues between July and September of this year, improving on an already astonishing 43 percent share from the same timeframe of last year.
This is not a close fight, with Apple miles ahead of Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo. | Image by Counterpoint Research
That's a new all-time record (for a third calendar quarter, at least), and it's made that much more impressive by the absence of a "vanilla" model from this fall's iPhone 18 lineup. The highly anticipated iPhone Duo foldable was also not able to contribute anything to this mind-blowing revenue share, making its (controversial) commercial debut after the end of Q3.
Apple leads even more comfortably in average selling prices
The aforementioned absence of the base iPhone 18 clearly had a positive effect on Apple's smartphone ASP (average selling price), which jumped from $870 in Q3 2025 to more than a thousand bucks now.
Apple's advantage over Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi in average smartphone selling prices is absolutely mind-blowing. | Image by Counterpoint Research
In second place, Samsung barely managed to hit a $367 mark, but that's actually a great result for the world's number one smartphone vendor by volume, representing a solid improvement of 63 bucks over last year's third-quarter ASP. Naturally, the impressive early popularity of the Galaxy Z Fold 8 was a major contributor here, as is true for the Galaxy S26 Ultra's steady demand.
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At the same time, of course, both the ASPs and overall revenues of the biggest industry players out there rose thanks to... the main thing that caused shipments to dwindle. I'm talking about component cost increases, which led to multiple rounds of price hikes across all major (and minor) smartphone brands over the last 12 months or so.
The entire market is up
Is it sustainable for smartphone vendors to expect their revenues to offset their volume declines in the long run? Probably not, but for the time being, many companies will undoubtedly find a little comfort in the industry's 3 percent revenue growth posted during the same quarter that shipments slipped by 20 percent.
3 percent, of course, is not a huge progress, but it clearly beats no progress at all (not to mention a 20 percent decline), and believe it or not, average selling prices jumped by no less than 27 percent in Q3 2026 compared to the same period of 2025.
The battle for volume supremacy is incredibly tight. | Image by Counterpoint Research
Although Samsung stands no chance of catching up to Apple in these two key success indicators anytime soon (possibly, ever), its 21 percent year-on-year ASP rise was actually bigger than that of its arch-nemesis while its 14 percent revenue improvement was also pretty close to Apple's own 17 percent boost in that department.
Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi, meanwhile, have their reasons to celebrate too, although their shares of the market's global revenues and their average selling prices are still considerably behind both Apple and Samsung. In fact, Oppo and Vivo's revenues went down in Q3 2026 from Q3 2025, which was (partially) offset by a healthy ASP rise for both Chinese brands, as well as neighboring Xiaomi (which kept its revenues at a stable level).
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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