India’s smartphone market just posted one of its roughest quarters in years — and it isn’t a demand problem so much as a price problem. According to IDC’s latest report, shipments fell 11.1% year-on-year in Q2 2026, with the pain spread unevenly across the industry.
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Winners and Losers
Almost every major Chinese brand took a hit, while the two companies with the strongest premium portfolios — Samsung and Apple — held their ground. The standout casualty was iQOO, whose market share collapsed by a massive 61%, leaving it with just 1.9% of the market.
| Rank | Brand | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | vivo | Declined, but still leads |
| 2 | Samsung | Held steady |
| 3 | OPPO | Declined |
| 4 | Xiaomi (incl. Redmi) | Declined |
| 5 | realme | Declined |
| 6 | Apple | Held steady |
| 7 | Motorola | Declined |
| 8 | Poco | Declined |
| 9 | OnePlus | Declined |
| 10 | iQOO | Declined sharply (-61%) |
For deeper context on brand-specific performance, our smartphone market coverage has been tracking these shifts across recent quarters.
Why Prices Are Rising Everywhere
The report points to a clear culprit: the global memory chip shortage, which has hit budget and mass-market brands hardest since they depend most heavily on thin margins in the lower-priced segment. As a result, India’s average selling price jumped 14.4%, and the cheapest phones — those priced under $100 — saw the steepest decline, shrinking from roughly 15.6% to just 4.5% of the market.
Apple and Samsung, by contrast, have leaned on premium positioning and financing options to cushion the blow, which IDC notes is helping narrow the effective price gap between flagship and budget devices. Official methodology and historical tracker data are available via IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
Online Sales Take the Bigger Hit
The channel breakdown tells its own story:
| Channel | Shipment Decline |
|---|---|
| Online | -19.8% |
| Offline | -3.6% |
Online-heavy brands, which typically compete on aggressive budget pricing, were disproportionately squeezed as the low-cost segment shrank. Offline retail proved far more resilient, likely buoyed by the same premium and financing trends benefiting Apple and Samsung.
What’s Next
IDC expects the downturn to continue, forecasting the second half of 2026 to remain challenging as rising component costs keep pushing prices — and buyer hesitation — higher. Keep following our smartphone industry coverage as Q3 data starts rolling in.
