India’s Smartphone Market Shrinks 10% in Q2 2026: Here’s Who Won and Who Lost

The Indian smartphone market just posted its worst June quarter in six years, and the culprit isn’t a lack of demand for new phones. It’s the price of the phones themselves. According to Counterpoint Research’s Monthly India Smartphone Tracker, shipments fell 10% year-on-year in Q2 2026, and the brand-by-brand shakeup tells its own story.

The Full Market Share Shift

vivo held onto the top spot with 17.8% (18% including some rounding by other trackers), but Samsung was the only brand among the top five to post genuine growth, closing the gap to less than a full percentage point behind the leader.

Why the Market Actually Shrank

The real story here is pricing, not demand collapse. Counterpoint attributes the decline mainly to record-high memory prices, which pushed smartphone prices up across nearly every segment and extended how long people hold onto their current phone before upgrading.

The sub-₹15,000 segment took the hardest hit, recording a 45% year-on-year decline in shipments, while the ultra-premium segment above ₹45,000 stayed relatively resilient, helped along by financing options that lower the upfront cost of buying flagship devices. Counterpoint expects financing to account for 42% of India’s smartphone sales in 2026, up from 35% in 2025, as buyers increasingly lean on EMIs to absorb rising prices.

Why Samsung Gained while Vivo and iQOO Slipped

Samsung’s growth came from a deliberate two-pronged push: aggressive summer promotions on budget models like the A07, A17, A37, and A57 5G, paired with steady flagship demand from the S25 and S26 series. The sub-₹20,000 price band became Samsung’s single largest volume contributor for the quarter, a segment where affordability clearly still moves units when priced right.

vivo’s slide, despite holding onto first place, came from budget-segment pressure after multiple price hikes across its Y and T series, even as its premium V70 launch performed well. iQOO’s steep 2.7-point drop was the sharpest of any brand tracked, reflecting how badly sub-brands positioned in the budget-to-mid segment got squeezed this quarter, a pattern also visible in POCO’s decline.

One standout deserves a mention outside the top table: Nothing posted 105% year-on-year growth, driven by the Phone 4a series and the newly launched Phone 4b, which reportedly became Flipkart’s best-selling phone above ₹30,000 during its launch week.

This pricing squeeze isn’t isolated to phones either. It’s the same pressure we’ve tracked in our coverage of Xiaomi and Redmi’s tablet price hikes this year and Apple’s own iPhone price adjustments amid rising component costs, all pointing back to the same global memory shortage.

The Takeaway

India’s smartphone market didn’t shrink because people stopped wanting new phones. It shrank because record memory prices pushed costs up across nearly every price band, squeezing budget buyers hardest while premium and financing-backed purchases held steady. Samsung capitalised best on the moment; iQOO and POCO took the biggest hit.