Extended reality: Apple's entry holds promise but mainstream XR remains a long game

Growth in AI consumption is creating commercial opportunities across the AI value chain. Over the past year, investment in AI has increasingly extended towards revenue-generating services and enterprise propositions, with operators assuming a broader range of roles across the AI value chain. Telcos in Asia Pacific are particularly active across multiple layers of the AI value chain. They account for 43% of those participating in the infrastructure layer and 38% in the model layer. This position reflects the combination of large and linguistically diverse markets, government-backed national and sovereign AI agendas, expanding AI infrastructure investment, and the scale of leading regional operators and technology ecosystems.

As smartphone competition becomes increasingly shaped by regional dynamics, understanding competitive dynamics beyond the global level is becoming more important. This report examines smartphone competition through a regional lens, highlighting leaders, followers and challengers across regions and countries. The insights can be used to formulate or adjust commercial strategies, identify growth opportunities and prioritise markets.

The Smartphone Market Shares Dashboard 2026 provides granular data on OEM smartphone market shares across countries, regions and at the global level, highlighting market leaders, followers and challengers. It is a valuable resource for OEMs looking to refine their growth strategies and targets, as well as for mobile operators, digital service providers and other stakeholders whose businesses rely on smartphone market dynamics and competitive positioning.