Smartphone market boom in 2025, but hangover predicted in 2026?

While some analysts foresee the smartphone market taking off in the coming years, others, more pessimistic, believe a decline is to be expected as early as next year, following the boom of 2025. Global success for the iPhone 17 series, driving a growing smartphone market. The IDC firm is among the latter, even though it agrees with everyone else on one point: the iPhone 17 range has been a smash hit this year, carrying the rest of the market with it, which is expected to grow by 1.5% compared to 2024. Thus, Apple should distribute more than 274 million devices in 2025, representing annual growth of 6.1%, thanks in particular to China, an important market for the manufacturer. The iPhone 17 was the number one selling phone in October and November in China with more than 20% market share. IDC has revised upwards its estimated growth forecast for the last quarters of 2024 and 2025, from 9% to 17%. This success has also been observed in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. 2026, Apple behind the predicted market decline? However, there is a slight downside: IDC estimates that Apple's growth should decline by 4.2% in 2026 (see image above), due to the manufacturer's new schedule change. They will only release part of their iPhone 18 lineup in September, and the rest in early 2027. This is compounded by potential shortages of memory processors, which would lead to production cuts and price increases across the entire smartphone market.