Apple made Q1 history and Samsung got a big boost from the Galaxy S26 in a key smartphone market

The local king is undefeated for seven straight quarters now

If you look closely, you’ll notice that Vivo is India’s top smartphone vendor since Q3 2024. | Image by Omdia

 

That kind of stagnation is not something device manufacturers typically aim for, but the mobile industry is going through some pretty atypical times, with sales expected to go down worldwide this year due to price hikes caused by rapidly rising component costs. 

So far, handset demand hasn’t been impacted that badly in India, where first-quarter shipments have declined by 5 percent from last year. Still, a 5 percent overall decrease is clearly worse than Vivo’s 0 percent year-on-year fluctuation, so you can definitely say that the country’s top vendor has defied the latest market trend… for the time being.

Samsung is also in the exact same position as last year

Thanks to all these successful products, the company managed to retain not only its silver medal position but also the same 16 percent market share and 5.1 million unit sales tally as during the first three months of 2025, which makes me wonder just how massive of a drop Samsung will need to deal with when the novelty of the S26 trio wears off.

We’ll just have to wait and see how things go in Q2 and Q3, but before then, it’s important to highlight that one of India’s top five vendors actually managed to boost its Q1 2026 shipment figures compared to Q1 of last year. Oppo’s 21 percent increase is certainly not modest either, narrowing the gap between third and second place from 4 to just 1 percent share and from 1.2 million to less than half a million units in volume.

Apple went down and up at the same time

Two of India’s top five vendors stagnated in Q1 2026, one improved its sales figures, and another two posted pretty worrying declines. | Image by Omdia

Instead, something tells me Apple will continue to try to find ways to keep iPhone prices in check (both in India and around the world) to navigate the industry’s ongoing “chipflation” crisis better than anyone else. Still, it’s hard to believe any major vendor will be able to return to regional sales growth anytime soon, because…

The market is looking at a double-digit decline next

If you needed further evidence that the 5 percent Q1 dip was not that bad, Omdia researchers are anticipating that smartphone shipments in India will soon fall by more than 10 percent.

A 5 percent sales decrease is certainly not ideal, but things are about to go from bad to worse for India’s smartphone market. | Image by Omdia

 

That’s because price increases have already “accelerated into Q2”, impacting entry-level devices more than any other category, which is obviously a bad sign for virtually all top vendors in the region… except for Apple.