Apple has pulled level with Samsung in Europe, and it happened while the entire market was shrinking. That’s the kind of stat that should make Samsung’s strategy team sit up straight.
According to SamMobile, Counterpoint Research’s latest data for Q2 2026 shows both Samsung and Apple sitting at 34% market share across Europe. That’s a dead heat at the top, and it comes during a quarter where overall smartphone shipments dropped 10% year over year. Growing your slice while the whole pie shrinks? That’s not luck, that’s positioning.
To appreciate how much has shifted, look at where things stood a year ago. In Q2 2025, Samsung held 31% of the European market and Apple was at 25%. Samsung was clearly ahead. Now Apple has closed a six-point gap in a single year, which is a serious move. Samsung still grew by four percentage points itself, so this wasn’t Samsung slipping. Apple simply charged hard.
The rest of the market tells its own story. Xiaomi sits in third with 15%, while Oppo and Honor trail at 4% and 3% respectively. Chinese brands are present, but nowhere near threatening the top two right now.
So why is the market shrinking in the first place? Counterpoint Research points to two main factors:
- Rising smartphone prices driven by skyrocketing memory chip costs
- Fewer promotional deals from brands protecting their margins
That last point matters. When brands stop discounting aggressively, budget-conscious buyers hold off. And Counterpoint Research warns that shipments will keep declining over the next few quarters, with lower-end brands taking the hardest hit as inventory dries up.
This is actually good news for Samsung. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 series and Galaxy Z Flip 8 are not budget phones. They’re premium, high-margin devices with genuine demand. Samsung isn’t competing in the segment that’s about to feel the most pain. So while smaller players scramble, Samsung has the product lineup to stay competitive at the top.
The real question now is whether Apple can push past 34% or whether Samsung can pull ahead again before the year ends. Either way, Europe’s smartphone market just got a lot more interesting.