There's bad news for Pixel sales in the US, and Pixel 10 series could be to blame

The US smartphone market has effectively been a duopoly for years now, as Apple and Samsung account for the vast majority of sales. Now, a new report has revealed mostly bad news for these and other manufacturers in the market.

Omdia released its Q1 2026 smartphone market share report, and it turns out the market declined by 3% compared to a year ago. Apple accounted for 60% of the market, while second-placed Samsung had a 24% share. This matches their market share in Q1 2025, but Apple’s shipments were down 3% year-on-year while Samsung’s shipments were down 5%.

There’s also bad news for Google’s Pixel phones, as its shipments were down 7% compared to Q1 2025. One saving grace is that it maintained 3% market share compared to last year. This leaves it in fourth place in the US.

Omdia attributes the decline in Pixel shipments to the Pixel 10 series, saying it “failed to replicate the momentum of the Pixel 9 lineup” a year ago. The tracking firm also suggested that things could’ve been worse had the Pixel 10a not launched earlier in the year compared to the Pixel 9a. It also noted that “aggressive” carrier promotions were still a key way for Google to grow Pixel sales.

Fourth-placed Motorola was the only smartphone maker to grow in the US during Q1 2026. Moto shipments grew by 18%, with its market share going from 9% a year ago to 11% in this latest quarter. Omdia says this growth was mainly due to the new Moto G phones, which reportedly accounted for over 70% of the brand’s shipments in the quarter. It also sounds like carriers and prepaid outlets took advantage of the calm before Motorola instituted price hikes in April.

Otherwise, Omdia senior analyst Eric Chen suggested that the US market was becoming more polarized, as the premium ($800+) segment declined by just 1% while the sub-$300 segment grew by 8%. However, the $300-$599 segment declined by 19% and the $600-$799 segment dropped by 6%.