Smartphone market set for biggest-ever decline in 2026 on memory price surge, IDC says

Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen, Guangdong · Reuters

Reuters

Fri, February 27, 2026 at 4:08 AM GMT+9 2 min read

Feb 26 (Reuters) - The global smartphone market is poised to suffer its biggest decline ever in 2026, sinking to a more ‌than decade low in shipments, as surging memory chip prices ‌drive up device costs, the International Data Corporation said on Thursday.

Smartphone shipments are expected to ​drop 12.9% to 1.12 billion units, the research firm said in a report.

The decline will hit low-end Android manufacturers the hardest, while Apple and Samsung are positioned to gain market share as smaller rivals struggle or exit the ‌market entirely, the report ⁠said.

“What we are witnessing is not a temporary squeeze, but a tsunami-like shock originating in the memory supply chain,” ⁠said Francisco Jeronimo, vice president for Worldwide Client Devices at IDC.

Analysts have said rising component costs will erode margins at smartphone companies focused on budget devices, ​forcing them ​to pass on the expenses to ​consumers at a time when ‌demand at higher price points is weakening.

Apple and Samsung, with stronger balance sheets and premium positioning, are better equipped to weather the crisis, IDC said.

The average selling price of smartphones is projected to surge 14% to a record $523 this year, as manufacturers shift toward higher-margin models to offset ‌ballooning costs.

IDC expects a modest 2% recovery ​in 2027 as the crisis eases, followed by ​a 5.2% rebound in ​2028, though it said that the market was unlikely to ‌return to previous norms.

“The memory crisis ​will cause more ​than a temporary decline; it marks a structural reset of the entire market,” said Nabila Popal, senior research director at IDC’s Mobile ​Phone Tracker.

She warned that ‌the sub-$100 smartphone segment, representing 171 million devices, will become “permanently uneconomical” ​even after memory prices stabilize by mid-2027.

(Reporting by Kritika Lamba ​in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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