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    Here’s a major smartphone market where Samsung is still untouchable and Apple irrelevant

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    It’s no longer a big secret that Apple followed its tremendous 2025 with equally impressive handset sales figures around the world in the first three months of 2026, but iPhones can’t dominate every single market out there, and a new report published by Omdia reveals a key region where Samsung continues to hold a comfortable lead over silver medalist… Xiaomi.

    Believe it or not, Apple failed to make Latin America’s podium between January and March of this year, falling short of the regional smartphone shipment scores posted by Motorola and Honor as well. And that’s despite the Cupertino-based tech giant actually managing to improve its numbers by a fairly substantial 31 percent from Q1 2025, which almost makes things worse for iPhone fans in countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

    Samsung has more than double Xiaomi’s market share

    You know how Apple dominates the US smartphone sales chart quarter after quarter and year after year? That’s (almost) how clear of an advantage Samsung holds on Xiaomi in Latin America, at 37 versus 17 percent market share as of Q1 2026.

    The 20-point gap is wider than Samsung’s 18-point lead from the first three months of last year and the “modest” 17-point advantage reported by Omdia in Q4 2025, as the regional champ has managed to boost its quarterly shipments by 9 percent year-on-year while Xiaomi has had to settle for a much smaller 3 percent gain in the same period.
    Because Latin America is a region where high-end devices are way less popular than in the US, Western Europe, and even China and India, Samsung’s top performers were once again its low- and mid-end Galaxy A-series products, while Xiaomi derived a good chunk of its solid results from the Redmi Note 15 series.

    Apple and Honor can be proud of their latest quarterly jumps

    If you think Samsung’s aforementioned 9 percent increase in sales compared to Q1 2025 is impressive, just wait until you hear about the growth of Latin America’s fourth and fifth largest vendors.

    Honor is up 30 percent from 2.6 million unit shipments during the first three months of last year to 3.4 million now, while Apple has somehow pulled off a 31 percent regional increase at a time so many other major markets around the world have begun to shrink.

    Of course, Apple’s year-on-year sales improvement is likely to sound far less astounding when you consider the company’s rather modest Q1 2025 total of 1.4 million units… that still hasn’t broken the 2 million barrier in Q1 2026. 1.8 million iPhones are only enough for 5 percent market share, which is half of Honor’s slice of the pie and a staggering 32 points behind Samsung.

    For what it’s worth, iPhone 17 series demand is described as “robust” by Omdia analysts, and as crazy as it sounds, Apple has apparently managed to improve its overall quarterly sales by no less than 80 percent (!!!) in Mexico.

    Samsung holds three of the region’s five biggest crowns

    Despite Apple’s incredible rise in Mexico, the nation remains one of Samsung’s key Latin American footholds alongside Brazil and Central America. Samsung’s Brazilian results in particular are destined to crush all hopes of the tech giant’s rivals that they’ll ever be able to catch up in the region, although Xiaomi is the number one vendor in Colombia and Peru.

    Together, these top five markets make up nearly three-quarters of the entire region’s smartphone shipments, and yes, the region as a whole has seen its sales go up from Q1 2025 by 3 percent. 

    That’s probably not the kind of result you were expecting after hearing about Apple’s 31 percent and Honor’s 30 percent sales jumps, but it’s still growth at a time of such macroeconomic difficulties. Obviously, rising memory costs have impacted Latin American countries as well, but at least for now, the impact is not as substantial as in the US or Western Europe.

    Looking ahead, Omdia researchers expect sales growth to “temper”, but the region might still be able to end 2026 in the green after posting record results in 2025.

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    Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian’s passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for ‘adequate’ over ‘overpriced’.

    Read the latest from Adrian Diaconescu

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