Smartphone Market Headed for Record Crash in 2026
IDC predicts global smartphone shipments will plunge 12.9% next year — the largest decline the market has ever seen.
The smartphone industry is about to hit a wall. IDC forecasts global shipments will crater 12.9% year-over-year in 2026, dropping to just 1.12 billion units. That's the biggest annual decline in the market's history.
The culprit? Skyrocketing memory prices. As component costs surge, device makers are passing those increases along to consumers — and consumers are apparently going to push back hard. Shipment volumes are expected to sink to levels not seen in over a decade.
This isn't a gentle correction. A 12.9% drop represents roughly 165 million fewer phones sold compared to the prior year. For an industry that's spent years trying to claw back post-pandemic momentum, it's a brutal setback.
The memory price spiral is squeezing margins across the supply chain, and there's no quick fix in sight.