The US phone market struggled in Q1, but one Android maker made serious headway
The US phone market struggled in Q1, but one Android maker made serious headway
Publish Date: 2026-05-28 05:47:00
Source Domain: www.androidcentral.com
What you need to know
- Research company, Omdia, reported on the U.S. smartphone market for Q1 2026, stating it has dipped by 3% YoY.
- The company says that rising memory and storage costs aided this decline, as well as “restrained carrier upgrades.”
- Samsung dropped 5% YoY, but it still led the charge for Android, taking up 24% of the market; however, Apple (down 3%) took the number one spot with 60%.
- The only Android maker to go positive was Motorola, which marked an 18% growth in the U.S. smartphone market.
Reports discussing how smartphones performed in Q1 are surfacing, and they’re telling the story of a struggling market.
The research company Omdia shared a press release this morning (May 27), highlighting how the U.S. smartphone market performed in Q1 2026. According to its research, the market did not perform as well YoY (year-over-year). Omdia states the market dipped by 3% YoY in Q1, as companies shipped 33.4 million units across the country.
The cause? Omdia says “shipments were pressured by a more restrained carrier upgrade environment, rising memory and storage costs, and delayed device launches that compressed sell-through for key premium models.” Though the decline was “modest,” Omdia could not ignore the aforementioned catalysts behind the market’s decline in Q1.
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Android Central’s Take
I think what’s most interesting is the 60/40 split between Apple and Android in Q1. The U.S. is nearly split on which devices it’s reaching for: Android or iOS. Samsung still leads the charge for Android, but its still roughly 40% behind Apple (and ~12 million shipped devices behind, too). I’m also quite surprised by Motorola. It’s the only popular Android brand that went positive—and by double digits, at that.
The situation breaks down company performance, too, with Apple leading the charge with 60% of the U.S. phone market. However, the company isn’t unscathed, as Apple posted a 3% dip in Q1. Coming…
