China smartphone sales fell 16% year over year during the two weeks around the 2026 May Day holiday, according to a new weekly tracking report from Counterpoint Research.
The firm said the biggest reason was higher memory and storage costs, which pushed handset prices up and made buyers less willing to replace their phones. It also noted that this year’s May Day promotions were weaker than usual, as OEM brands focused more on margins than on chasing raw shipment volume.
The report says Huawei market share remained the strongest in China. Counterpoint pointed to the Enjoy 90 Pro Max as a standout performer thanks to its battery life and value positioning, and it said Huawei’s weekly sales share stayed above 25% through April. The late-April launch of the Pura 90 Pro series and the foldable Pura X Max also helped reinforce Huawei’s lead during the holiday period.
Even as rivals kept raising prices because of cost pressure, Huawei was still running promotions on older models such as the Nova 15 and Mate 80 lines. Counterpoint linked that flexibility to Huawei’s domestic supply-chain advantage and said it helped the company keep gaining share.
Apple, meanwhile, was described as being in a more seasonal part of its cycle while competing brands rolled out more appealing new devices in April. After an earlier six-month stretch of strong sales, demand for the iPhone 17 family has started to normalize. Even so, Counterpoint said Apple’s first-quarter position in China remained relatively solid, partly because domestic brands were forced to raise prices and partly because subsidy support continued to help entry-level iPhone sales.
The report also said other Chinese brands launched new phones and paired them with promotions in late April, which supported some holiday momentum. But rising component costs continue to weigh on the wider Android market. Counterpoint said Chinese Android brands have raised prices on older models by an average of 13%, a move that could keep short-term demand under pressure.
Looking ahead, the firm expects a mild month-over-month rebound in early June as 618 promotions ramp up. Even so, with memory costs still elevated, it forecasts that China’s 2026 smartphone shipments will decline 9% year over year, though that would still be better than the expected global average.
For this study, the “May Day holiday” period refers specifically to weeks 18 and 19 of 2026.
