US smartphone sales fell 5% year-on-year in Q2 2026, and the damage was wildly uneven. Counterpoint Research’s latest US Smartphone Channel Share Tracker figures, published on 12 August, show the four biggest brands in the country — Apple, Samsung, Motorola and Google — down a combined 4%. Everyone else fell 45%. The cheap American Android phone is being priced out of existence.
The Sub-$100 Phone Is Disappearing From the US Market
Sales of smartphones under $100 collapsed 64% year-on-year. Counterpoint’s explanation is blunt: manufacturers either stopped shipping those devices or raised prices to cover the cost of memory and storage. RAM demand from AI hyperscalers has driven memory prices up sharply, and a phone selling for $89 has no margin to absorb that.
Carrier-branded white-label phones took some of the heaviest losses, because the price gap that justified them has closed — Samsung and Motorola can now sell into territory that used to belong to no-name handsets. Counterpoint also notes the groundwork was already laid in 2025, when tariff fears and a weak prepaid market pushed several smaller brands to shrink or leave the US entirely. HMD, the company that had been selling Nokia-branded phones, was the most visible exit.
Prepaid sales overall fell 11%, but Samsung and Motorola grew their share of that shrinking pool, with carriers leaning on the Galaxy A series and the Moto G series to pull in switchers. Both brands raised prices anyway: Motorola lifted several G-series models in Q2, and Samsung put $50 on the Galaxy A17 in July.
A New Price Floor Is Forming Around $200
The one growth story in the data is a symptom, not a recovery. The $200–$299 band grew by nearly 200% year-on-year and tripled its share of the market — because Motorola’s top G-series models moved up into it. Counterpoint describes that band as having previously been “a pricing void in the US market”. It is filling up now not because buyers traded up, but because the phones they were already buying got more expensive.
That is the part worth sitting with if you are shopping for a budget Android phone in the US. The market has not improved at the low end; the low end has moved. Options that cost $89 last summer either do not exist or now cost $150, and the segment that used to be the entry point has thinned out to the two brands with enough purchasing scale to keep buying memory at a workable price.
What Counterpoint Expects Next
The firm expects average selling prices to keep climbing through the current quarter, with Apple’s next iPhone the swing factor:
We expect smartphone ASPs to continue to increase in Q3 2026, as Apple is expected to increase prices for its iPhone 18 series models. Given that Apple historically accounts for over 50% of smartphone sales in the third quarter, price increases for top models will have a large effect on smartphone ASPs. Sales strength will be dependent on how much the carriers are willing to subsidize these models.
Counterpoint’s report, written by research analyst Blake Przesmicki, also flags that Google launched the Pixel 11 series at higher price points than the Pixel 10 series it launched in August 2025 — a point our breakdown of the Pixel 11 Pro’s $100 increase covers in detail. The consolidation forecast is the uncomfortable one: with prices still rising, Counterpoint expects prepaid sales to keep concentrating around Motorola and Samsung as margins squeeze the remaining low-end brands out. Fewer brands competing for budget buyers has never once ended in cheaper phones.
