• Global smartphone sell-through volumes are expected to decline 1% YoY in February, with YTD volumes down 4% YoY. The decline is partly due to a slowdown in demand in the lower and mid range segments due to price increases.
• Counterpoint has observed noticeable price increases across most Android brands, like Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, realme and Transsion Group, as of February 2026.
• Most significant price increases have appeared in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa so far.
• Global smartphone ASPs are expected to grow 12% YoY for the full year 2026.

As per Counterpoint’s latest Market Pulse (Early Look), Global smartphone sell-through volumes are expected to decline 1% Year-on-Year (YoY) in February, as Lunar New Year promotions in China partially offset declines in other regions. Only the Middle East and Japan are also expected to grow YoY for the month, while Africa is expected to be flat YoY.

In terms of Year-to-Date (YTD, Jan-Feb) sell-through volumes, the market decline is more significant across regions, with the global volumes down 4% YTD. Some of the YTD decline is attributable to Samsung’s late launch of the S26 series and the weakness in the China market. However, demand is also slowing in the lower and mid-tier segments across markets due to price increases as a result of the increasing intensity of the memory crunch. Price changes are starting to trickle into more regions and price bands, despite best efforts from OEMs to mitigate sticker shock. Markets with a price sensitive buyer base will see increasing headwinds from the memory crisis from now on.

Smartphone Market Growth by Regions (%) - Year-on-Year
(February 2026 vs 2025)

Smartphone Market Growth by Regions (%) - Year-to-date 2026
(January-February 2026 vs 2025)

As of February, global smartphone price rose modestly across brands, with most significant price increases seen in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa so far. That said, more markets, like Europe, the Middle East and Latin America are expected to see increases in the coming months across brands.

Generally, Transsion brands (TECNO, Infinix, iTel), Xiaomi, OPPO, realme, vivo and Samsung increased prices noticeably and are implementing hardware changes, in a bid to navigate the memory shortages. HONOR and Motorola have largely maintained stable prices and supply. iPhone prices and supply remain largely unaffected as well.

Many brands, like OPPO in China, have released official communiques to inform their customers of price increases on older devices. Additionally, the Chinese government’s price control agency, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) also released an official statement stating expected increases in consumer electronics pricing like smartphones due to memory supply issues.

Price increases have ranged from slight to modest (5-10% on average) so far as OEMs rely on component inventories and older memory supply contracts. Additionally, many brands have also absorbed costs, cutting into profit margins and cash reserves, to maintain or even gain market share. However, as memory prices continue to rise and new memory supply contracts are negotiated, costs will have to pass down to consumers in order forbrands to stay financially afloat, leading to more significant price increases and unstable device supply, especially in the lower and mid-tier pricebands. We expect price increases to accelerate in Q2-Q3 2026, likely peaking in Q4 2026-Q1 2027.

Currently, prices have increased for some older models, with most price increases coming in the form of increased launch prices across a brand’s model series generation, without significant bumps in hardware specifications.

Some OEMs have made fewer memory variants available for their respective recent launches in a bid to preserve DRAM, where possible, based on priceband. For example, the recently launched TECNO Camon 50 base variant is now available only in one memory variation, compared to four last year – likely saving its lower (128GB) memory component inventory for its lower-end portfolio updates. That said, in a clever compensatory strategy, TECNO is offering 50GB of cloud storage for 3 years for free with the purchase of a Camon 50 device – indicating that brands will likely deploy aggressive and innovative strategies to compensate for lower memory configurations, especially in the mid and low-end pricebands..

Some OEMs have also pushed price increases on their premium consumer base. For example, Samsung increased the launch price of its flagship Galaxy S26 series, across all models. For more details, see the table given in Figure 3. The change in launch price for Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series is largely representative of the change we are seeing across Android OEMs and pricebands.

Samsung Galaxy S25 vs. S26 Series Pricing

Price increases have also varied across regions:

• There have been minimal increases in device prices in the USA so far, most significant of them being Samsung’s S26 flagship series.
• According to our weekly model price tracker, average device price increases in India accelerated to over 10% in February 2026 compared to the devices respective prices before October 2025. This is higher than the 6-8% increase seen in November 2025 through January 2026. Our industry checks indicate a possibility of another round of price hikes in April.

o So far, TECNO, Infinix, Xiaomi, vivo, Lava and Samsung have seen the highest price increases in India, mostly across their lower-end portfolio.

o Additionally, Xiaomi and OPPO hiked prices by 25%+ for their recently launched (made available globally) updates to their respective major volume driverthe redmi Note 15 and Reno 15 series, respectively.

o OPPO India introduced a new 4GB+64GB storage variant of the OPPO K14x 5G, aimed at budget buyers. It is the new entry level variant on Flipkart, which is priced ~$21 (10-13%) cheaper for half the memory size (From the predecessor 128 GB base variant), meaning improved margins. This is indicative that OEMs may use “Tiered Pricing or Multi SKU strategy” to maximize margins and market share.

• In China, smartphone OEMs are raising retail prices to offset the margin pressure from rising memory costs. Recent channel checks suggest a broad-based price increase rather than portfolio streamlining, indicating that vendors are trying to preserve margins while maintaining the breadth of their portfolio.

o OPPO announced price increases from March 16, for already released products, including the OPPO A series, K series, and OnePlus models. The OPPO Find and Reno series, on the other hand, will likely maintain current pricing for the time being. However, future hikes are expected and might be indicating that OPPO is putting flagship competitiveness first while transferring cost hikes to volume/mass market categories downstream.

o HONOR's price adjustments appear more pronounced. The HONOR X70 (12+512GB) variant is expected to see an increase of RMB 300–400 (~$44–$58), while HONOR's flagship lineup could see hikes of up to RMB 1,500 (~$218).

o vivo also announced upcoming price increases in an official post, two days after the release from OPPO. We expect price increases of 10-15% across its portfolio.

o Generally, for new products, OEMs have raised prices directly by launching them at higher prices than the previous generation. For example, the price of the Xiaomi 17 Ultra increased by RMB 500–700, while the higher-storage versions (16GB+512GB and 16GB+1TB) of the HONOR Magic V6 increased by RMB 1,000. Similarly, for Samsung Galaxy S26, the starting price compared to the last generation increased about RMB 1,000 (~$146).

o The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) stated that the rising prices of memory chips continue to be passed on to downstream vendors. The government's role is to monitor and issue early warnings to prevent abusive market behavior, such as malicious hoarding or price collusion, and to support domestic memory manufacturers like CXMT and YMTC in accelerating production and prioritizing supply to domestic vendors.

o OEMs closely follow national policies and will respond immediately to mandatory regulations. Currently, they are assessing the market response ahead of next-generation product launches. On one hand, they aim to stabilize their market share in China, as once lost it is difficult to regain. On the other hand, they want to gauge consumer response to price increases. If sales are significantly affected, adjustments will be made promptly.

• In Europe, prices largely remain unchanged for now, but we expect hikes soon.

o Samsung raised the entry prices of the S26 and S26 Plus, but the Ultra remained flat YoY.

o Xiaomi held the price of the 17 series, as did HONOR with the Magic 8.

o We suspect Samsung's A series will see a big jump when it launches in a few weeks.

o We expect Chinese OEMs (mostly expansion OEMs) to also trim their portfolios, specifically in the lower and mid-range segments. Only Xiaomi has confirmed that it will not be reducing SKUs in its lineup, but it is likely that the brand will have to be selective in availability.

• In Middle East & Africa (MEA), price increases have been largely limited to Africa, mostly for Transsion brands. Xiaomi, vivo and other Chinese brands are seeing reduced device availability in Africa, likely a result of reprioritisation of resources. The Middle East, on the other hand, has seen minimal increases in prices so far, and device availability remains stable.
• In Southeast Asia (SEA), price increases became more apparent from January, with OEMs hiking prices for new launches and older devices. Xiaomi and vivo have increased prices across their lower and mid-tier portfolios in Indonesia and other markets, while brands like OPPO, Transsion and realme have hiked prices of new launches or reduced memory configurations.
• In Latin America (LATAM), we haven’t seen price increases beyond inflation. But vendors, operators, and retailers have cut discounts for their products.

o In 2H last year (2025), major OEMs, like Samsung, were offering 20%-30% discount across many models from their respective portfolios. Currently, those discounts are mostly offered for models in the mid-tier and premium pricebands.

o HONOR is still offering price discounts in the lower price tiers -around 20% for entry-level devices, as the brand remains aggressive to gain market share.

o We have seen a decline in volumes from TECNO and Infinix, likely a result of scaling back of regional operations.

o Additionally, our industry and telecom operator checks suggest that several more brands will likely downsize and streamline their respective regional portfolios.

Overall, the price increases so far (in the range of 5-10%) have largely been in line with our expectations, with shipment ASPs expected to grow 10% YoY in Q1, as per our latest smartphone forecast. While price increases are adding to ASP growth, other key drivers also include premiumization and increased penetration of 5G devices in OEM portfolios. We expect ASPs to grow 12% YoY with shipments likely to decline 12% YoY for the full year 2026. The global slowdown in sales so far, in the January-February period, (-4% YoY) is better than our shipments forecast from the latest edition of Market Outlook. We expect a 9% YoY decline in shipments in Q1 2026. The decline in sales is likely to be slower than shipments in Q1 2026, due to inventory corrections following the high channel fill seen at the close of 2025.