Galaxy S26 helped Samsung retain its smartphone share, with Apple entering the top five in India for the first time in Q1 2026.
India’s smartphone market had a rough start to 2026. Shipments dropped 5% year on year to 30.9 million units in the first quarter, according to Omdia.
vivo held the top spot for a seventh straight quarter, shipping 6.3 million units for 20% market share. Samsung came in second at 5.1 million units and 16% share, with the Galaxy S26 arriving late in the quarter and giving the numbers a jolt.
OPPO, excluding realme and OnePlus, grabbed third place with 4.7 million units and 15% share, making it the fastest-growing vendor in the top five. Xiaomi and Apple rounded out the rankings at 3.8 million and 2.9 million units, respectively.
This is the first time Apple has cracked India’s top five in the first quarter. For a market where the vast majority of volumes still live below INR 20,000, Apple’s placing fifth isn’t a curiosity.
Samsung’s performance here tells a familiar story.
The Galaxy S26 landed toward the end of Q1, meaning its full weight doesn’t really show up in these figures. The mid-range A-series got refreshed; entry-level workhorses like the A07 and A17 kept the volumes honest.
Sanyam Chaurasia, Principal Analyst at Omdia, framed it as a phased approach, where Samsung deliberately avoided blanket price hikes to protect channel absorption and demand momentum.
Omdia is forecasting double-digit shipment declines for India across the full year. Entry-level devices are already seeing price increases of 18 to 20% as memory inflation forces a hard reset of the economics.
