In April 2026, the global semiconductor industry statistics agency released complete statistics on smartphone main SoC shipments for the first quarter. The overall shipment volume of mobile application processors (main SoCs) in the current period decreased by 8% year-on-year, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of negative year-on-year growth. The recovery of the smartphone terminal market was significantly lower than the previously optimistic expectations of the industry chain, and the overall demand for consumer electronics chips continued to be under pressure, becoming the most obvious subdivision track for structural differentiation in the semiconductor sector in 2026. Previously, by the end of 2025, multiple industry analysis agencies predicted that the global smartphone replacement cycle would shorten and the popularity of AI phones would drive the recovery of whole machine shipments in 2026. SoC chip shipments were expected to return to the positive growth range, but the actual data in the first quarter was significantly lower than expected, forcing the industry chain to lower its annual consumer electronics chip growth forecast.

The core downward incentive comes from three overlapping factors: firstly, the continuous price increase of global DRAM and NAND Flash storage chips, the passive rise in the bill of materials (BOM) cost of mobile phones, and the continuous compression of profit margins for mainstream mid to low end models. Mobile phone brand manufacturers actively control the inventory of complete machines, reduce the monthly order volume of upstream SoC chips, and extend the turnover days of channel inventory from the conventional 32 days to 47 days. Upstream chip design manufacturers are forced to lower the wafer investment volume; Secondly, the global macro consumption recovery is weak, and the number of smartphones in mature markets in Europe and America is approaching saturation. The per capita purchasing power in emerging markets is slowly increasing, and the willingness to replace phones continues to be low. The global shipment of complete mobile phones in the first quarter decreased by 4.2% year-on-year, directly dragging down the shipment of main SoC chips; Thirdly, in the fourth quarter of 2025, major chip manufacturers will pre stock AI smartphones with SoC, which will overdraw the demand for conventional model orders in the first quarter of 2026, further exacerbating the decline in quarterly order mismatches.

From the perspective of the pattern of factory manufacturers, Qualcomm still holds an absolute dominant position in high-end Android flagship SoCs. In the first quarter, the shipment volume of high-end Snapdragon series slightly increased against the trend, but the shipment volume of mid to low end entry-level chips decreased by 17% year-on-year, and the overall shipment volume slightly declined; The MediaTek Dimensity series firmly occupies the mainstream market share of mid-range models based on cost-effectiveness, but due to the impact of whole machine manufacturers cutting orders, shipments have declined by 9% year-on-year; Apple's self-developed A-series SoC, relying on the stable sales of iPhone models, has remained relatively stable, becoming the only overseas manufacturer with strong shipping resilience; The domestic Ziguang Spreadtrum entry-level SoC has grown by 11% against the trend in emerging markets in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Relying on the ultimate cost-effectiveness, it has seized the market share of low-end feature phones and entry-level smartphones, becoming the only local manufacturer with positive growth in consumer electronics chips.

The structural differentiation characteristics are extremely prominent: traditional communication and computing main SoCs continue to shrink, but the order volume of AI smartphone specific SoCs integrating independent NPU computing power units has exploded. The flagship smartphones released globally in the first quarter of 2026 come standard with 100% end-to-end independent AI computing power modules, supporting local large-scale model operation and offline multimodal AI processing. The transistor size of the internal computing power unit of a single high-end AI SoC has more than doubled compared to the previous generation, and the chip unit price has increased by 35% -50%. Qualcomm and MediaTek have simultaneously raised the supply prices of the new generation of high-end AI SoCs, further squeezing the profit margins of terminal manufacturers and forcing domestic chip manufacturers to enter the AI smartphone chip market.

The new generation of end-to-end AI SoC from Ziguang Spreadtrum has completed validation by leading domestic mobile phone manufacturers and will officially import AI phones priced at thousands of yuan in bulk in the second quarter; The Horizon Journey series of low-power edge AI chips has entered the mobile phone sub computing chip supporting market, responsible for image AI, real-time semantic processing and localized computing, no longer relying on the main SoC to share the computing load. The mature process (28nm/40nm) conventional mobile SoC production capacity has shown significant structural overcapacity, and the utilization rate of several wafer fabs' consumer electronics foundry production lines has fallen below 72%. The wafer fabs have actively adjusted their capacity allocation, gradually transferring mature process capacity to high prosperity tracks such as automotive chips, power semiconductors, and satellite communication chips, optimizing the utilization rate structure.

The latest production scheduling data of the industry chain shows that the global shipment of mobile phone main SoCs is expected to continue to decline by 11% -14% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2026, and the decline will further expand. The decline in conventional consumer electronics chips is difficult to reverse in the short term; Institutions predict that global smartphone shipments are expected to return to a steady growth channel at least until early 2028, and the recovery cycle for conventional smartphone SoC chips is long. However, the segment of AI chips on the end side has completely broken away from the independent market, and the shipment volume of NPU supporting chips for end side mobile phones is expected to increase by 127% year-on-year for the whole year, becoming the only deterministic growth track in the consumer electronics chip sector.

At the risk level, the penetration rate of AI smartphones is rapidly increasing, but users' willingness to pay is not as expected. Terminal brand manufacturers dare not significantly adjust the prices of smartphones, and the transmission of upstream AI chip price increases is hindered, putting pressure on the profitability of chip design manufacturers; At the same time, Qualcomm and MediaTek continue to deploy high-end AI computing technology, penetrating thousands of yuan models and squeezing the survival space of local AI mobile phone chips. In the medium to long term, the local operation of large models on the mobile phone end has become an irreversible trend in the industry. The incremental space for computing chips on the end side is determined, and domestic manufacturers are avoiding the competition of traditional main SoCs and focusing on the low-power NPU sub segment. They can still continue to seize emerging market share and achieve differentiated competition breakthroughs. The overall pattern of strong and weak differentiation in the consumer electronics chip sector will continue for a long time, with traditional SoCs under continuous pressure and AI supporting computing chips continuing to operate at a high level of prosperity.