In a report published today, IDC says Apple saw a 4% year-over-year decline in global iPhone shipments during Q3 2026, yet its share of worldwide smartphone shipments increased 23.1% over the same period last year. IDC's preliminary data on global smartphone shipments for Q3 2026 show a 22% drop compared to Q3 2025, in line with other regional and global trends reported recently. The culprit is the ongoing memory shortage, which has sent component costs soaring and squeezed device manufacturers, particularly those competing in lower-end markets.
Samsung remained atop the ranking with 57.8 million units shipped and a 22.6% share, down 5.8% from the year-ago period. Apple came in second with 57.3 million shipped units, followed by Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo. OPPO saw the biggest drop among the top five, with shipments down 34.5% year over year, while Apple recorded the smallest decline at 4%. That left Apple just 500,000 units behind Samsung, a gap of only 0.2 percentage points in shipment share.
Nabila Popal, IDC's senior research director for Worldwide Devices, said the sharp downturn finally materialized in the third quarter, with shipments declining a record 22% year over year. However, she warned that the worst is yet to come. Current indicators suggest the market has not yet reached the bottom. Memory costs have surged approximately 350% since last year and are still rising, creating substantial pressure on vendor margins and shipments.
The report came two days after IDC released preliminary results for the Chinese smartphone market, where Apple's share of shipments increased from 15.8% to 17.8%, despite a 4.3% year-over-year decline in iPhone shipments.
Source: 9to5Mac · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing