According to Counterpoint's latest forecast on April 21, the global smartphone market will reach an important milestone in 2025: one-third of smartphone shipments will support generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), and annual shipments are expected to exceed 400 million units. This trend marks the rapid progress of the smartphone industry in the integration of artificial intelligence technology, and also indicates that GenAI will become one of the core functions of future smartphones.
GenAI integration is accelerating, and technology and market demand drive change
From 2024 to 2025, the proportion of global smartphones supporting GenAI has increased significantly. In 2024, only one-fifth of smartphones support GenAI, and by 2025, this proportion will jump to one-third. Behind this rapid development are the advancement of chipset technology and the continuous optimization of lightweight large language models (LLMs). These technological advances enable GenAI to run more efficiently on smartphones, while also reducing hardware costs, laying the foundation for wider market applications.
High-end market leads the trend, mid-range market accelerates popularization
In 2025, GenAI features will become standard in high-end smartphones and begin to rapidly expand to the mid-range market. Smartphone brands regard GenAI as a key differentiator and attract consumers by introducing innovative GenAI use cases. However, consumer adoption of GenAI use cases is still limited, mainly because these use cases have not yet fully inspired consumers or provided sufficient daily practicality. As a result, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are working hard to find breakthrough GenAI applications that can significantly enhance user experience and encourage device upgrades.
In the early stages of the development of the GenAI smartphone market, Apple and Samsung are expected to dominate. However, as the market continues to develop, Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and Honor will become an important force in promoting the popularity of GenAI smartphones. These brands plan to expand GenAI features to the mid-range smartphone market after 2025, accelerating the growth of overall shipments by providing affordable and powerful GenAI devices.
It is expected that by the end of 2026 or early 2027, Apple's market share may decline significantly in the medium term as mid-range GenAI smartphones become widely popular.
Regional market performance varies, North America and Western Europe lead, China accelerates to catch up
In terms of regional markets, the report believes that North America and Western Europe are in the lead in the adoption of GenAI smartphones. In 2024, nearly half of smartphone shipments in North America support GenAI, and this proportion is expected to climb to 82% by 2028. The adoption trajectory in Western Europe is similar to that in North America, mainly due to major industry players such as Apple, Samsung and Google driving product differentiation through high-end AI content creation tools, personalized AI assistants and attractive subscription services.
At the same time, China's GenAI smartphone adoption is expected to grow rapidly. Local Chinese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are actively engaged in AI integration, and fierce market competition will accelerate the introduction of advanced AI features in mid-range devices, possibly faster than other markets. At present, major Chinese smartphone brands have developed their own internal LLM models, but these models are mainly limited to the Chinese market.
Looking ahead, Agentic AI is expected to become the next innovative buzzword in the smartphone industry in 2025. Agentic AI will give smartphones more powerful autonomous decision-making capabilities, further improving user experience and the intelligence level of devices.