Curiously enough, the report looked at Apple's huge advantage over all Android handset vendors at the nation's big three carriers while highlighting the great balance between Samsung and Motorola in the prepaid channel... without adding up the numbers to provide a complete picture of the battle for supremacy across the US.
Fortunately, Omdia comes in today to rectify that Counterpoint Research omission, predictably ranking Apple well ahead of Samsung... while singling out a different brand as the biggest (and only) American grower during the first three months of this year.
How did Motorola manage to boost its sales by 18 percent?
First things first, allow me to put that figure in the right perspective to emphasize its value. While Motorola jumped from exactly 3 million domestic shipments in Q1 2025 to 3.6 mil a year later, Apple dropped from 20.6 to 19.9 million units, Samsung lost 5 percent of its sales from the opening quarter of last year, TCL plummeted by 17 percent, and the "others" segment fell from a modest total of 800K to an even humbler 600K tally.
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Four top vendors (and the others category) are down, only one is up. | Image by Omdia
Basically, Motorola somehow added the equivalent of all the sales generated by OnePlus, Nothing, HMD, and a bunch of "other" brands to an already respectable 3 million score, and it did this while US smartphone shipments in their entirety posted a 3 percent year-on-year decline (at least according to Omdia).
In short, not that bad. Interestingly, Counterpoint researchers actually estimated Apple's US iPhone sales as higher between January and March 2026 compared to the first three months of 2025, which Omdia evidently does not agree with.
Apple will clearly not yield the top spot in the US vendor ranking anytime soon. | Image by Omdia
One thing the two analytics firms clearly agree on is the steady popularity of the iPhone 17 lineup, which apparently accounted for a mind-blowing 70 percent of its maker's Q1 2026 sales stateside.
There's also no debate over the impact Samsung's late Galaxy S26 series launch had on the company's first-quarter numbers, although it obviously remains to be seen if the newest Android super-flagships will prove an overall hit at the end of the year.
How do you think the US smartphone market will look a year from now?
For the time being, it's crystal clear that the S26, S26 Plus, and S26 Ultra got off to a strong (albeit belated) start at the US box-office, improving the local pre-order total of last year's Galaxy S25 series by close to 25 percent.
Google is hurting a lot more
Okay, maybe a 7 percent drop doesn't sound dramatically worse than Apple and Samsung's 3 and 5 percent year-on-year declines, respectively. But Google was already practically irrelevant in the US smartphone space, holding a microscopic 3 percent slice of the pie in the January-March 2025 timeframe, so seeing the search giant's 900K unit sales shrink even further has to hurt like crazy.
The reason is pretty simple, and you don't need a degree in data analysis to figure it out. The Pixel 10 family is not as popular as the Pixel 9 portfolio, most likely due to a lack of substantial internal upgrades or noticeable design revisions, and the early 10a launch couldn't have much of a positive impact when the "new" mid-ranger is virtually identical to last year's 9a.
What's next for the US smartphone market?
If product prices continue to rise (which feels virtually guaranteed), overall sales are likely to keep dropping over the next few quarters compared to the same timeframe of last year. That's probably going to be especially true for Samsung and Motorola's numbers after their recent price hikes, but Apple could defy the trend and prevent the market from sinking.
US sales are going down and are likely to continue going down for the foreseeable future. | Image by Omdia
All in all, the current prediction for the nation's full-year shipment scores stands at 4 percent below the 2025 total, which is... actually not that bad.
The "premium" ($800+) segment suffered only a tiny decline in Q1 and is expected to hold up pretty well in the near future too, while the low-end (sub-$300) division actually expanded between January and March 2026. That means sales fell off a cliff in the $300-$599 and $600-$799 categories, as mid-range and mid-to-high-end devices felt the biggest pressure from rising production costs and "more selective" carrier subsidies.
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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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