Smartphone Sales Become Increasingly Difficult, New Chinese Brands Suddenly Sell Strongly

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Chinese smartphone manufacturer HONOR has captured global attention with the fastest growth outside the top five world producers. The brand, previously under Huawei’s umbrella and not yet as renowned as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and others, has finally shown its prowess. The latest Omdia report records that HONOR shipped 19.2 million smartphone units, making it the vendor with the fastest growth in the global top 10 ranks. This surge comes from aggressive expansion in international markets. HONOR recorded more than double the increase in annual shipments in the Middle East and Africa region. However, a different situation occurs in the domestic Chinese market. Amid increasingly fierce competition with other local players, HONOR’s performance is under pressure. Overall, the global smartphone market is still experiencing thin growth according to the Omdia report. The firm reported total shipments reaching 298.5 million units in Q1-2026, growing only 1% year-on-year. Differing from Omdia, according to the IDC firm’s report in Q1 2026, smartphone shipments fell 4.1% YoY to 289.7 million units over the first three months of this year. Previously, the Counterpoint report also noted a similar trend to IDC. Smartphone shipments were recorded to decline, even reaching 6% YoY in Q1-2026. The main cause is the shortage of DRAM and NAND memory components. According to the Omdia report, the thin growth performance in smartphone shipments is driven by vendors’ strategies to accelerate product distribution before component and memory prices rise. This step made the industry’s performance slightly better than initial estimates. However, on the other hand, global economic pressures have not eased. Prolonged inflation has weakened consumer purchasing power, creating a gap between stock pushed to the market and actual sales to end users. Omdia warns that this imbalance could trigger a deeper market correction in the second quarter to the second half of this year.