Xiaomi Cut LATAM Shipments 27% Last Quarter. Here's How to Rebuild Your Order Mix

If your usual Redmi order came back short this quarter, you are not imagining it. Xiaomi shipped 27% fewer phones into Latin America in the second quarter of 2026 than it did a year earlier, and the reason has almost nothing to do with demand in your market. Here is what actually happened, and how to rebuild an order around it.

What actually happened to Xiaomi's LATAM supply in Q2 2026

Counterpoint Research's Market Monitor puts Latin American smartphone shipments down 10% year over year in Q2 2026, the steepest quarterly drop since Q3 2023. Xiaomi took the worst of it with a 27% decline. The cause was a decision, not a lack of buyers: facing the global memory crunch, Xiaomi prioritized product supply for its core market in China, and regional availability got squeezed as a result. You can read Counterpoint's full Q2 2026 LATAM breakdown here.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. If a brand pulls back because customers stopped buying it, you cut it from the mix and move on. If it pulls back because someone upstream reallocated volume, the SKU comes back eventually. You just cannot build this quarter's shelf waiting for it.

Motorola down 14%, HONOR down 8%: the entry-tier squeeze

Motorola fell 14% in the same quarter and HONOR fell 8%. All three brands live in the same place: entry and mid-range. Counterpoint notes those two bands account for three out of every four smartphones sold in the region, and they are exactly where rising memory costs land hardest, because there is no margin left to absorb them.

Motorola at least held its average selling price up, helped by refreshed G Series, Edge and Razr lines and heavy FIFA World Cup 2026 marketing. It is still the second-largest brand in the region. But the unit volume is thinner, and thinner volume upstream turns into longer lead times on your side of the transaction.

Samsung's 38% share and the Galaxy A gap-filler

Samsung went the other direction, growing 6% year over year and taking roughly 38% of total Latin American shipments. It retook the number one brand position in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru on the strength of product availability, aggressive discounting, and presence in both physical and online channels. Apple grew 5%, mostly by absorbing the price increase instead of passing it straight through.

For a reseller, that is really an availability map. Galaxy A is the line that is actually in volume when the Chinese entry brands are not. If your shelf has been Redmi-heavy, this is the quarter to test a Galaxy A block next to it. Our current wholesale Samsung range and the broader wholesale cell phone lineup are both worth a look before you place the next order.

Rebuilding a 30-unit order when your usual SKU is gone

Our minimum is 30 units, and those 30 can be assorted across models. That flexibility is worth a lot more in a constrained quarter than in a normal one. Four things we would suggest.

Do not rebuild the same order behind one substitute brand. Split it: ten units of a Galaxy A model you have sold before, ten of a Motorola G, ten of whatever your customers still ask for by name. Second, give us your second-choice model up front, so if the first pick is not in we can quote the closest thing in the same price band instead of coming back to you two days later. Third, watch the price band rather than the model number, because your buyer wants a phone at a price, not a specific SKU. Fourth, shorten the reorder window. In a quarter like this one, sitting on a slow model costs more than reordering twice.

If you sell into several countries at once, our page for wholesale phones across Latin America covers how we handle multi-market orders out of Miami.

How long this supply squeeze lasts

IDC now forecasts worldwide smartphone shipments falling 16.7% in 2026, with the second half dropping 27.2% year over year as memory costs work through the chain. NAND and DRAM are up more than 300% year over year, and IDC expects memory prices to keep rising until at least 2028. You can read IDC's 2026 shipment forecast in full. Counterpoint's read is the same: memory supply and pricing, not consumer demand, will decide market performance for the next 18 to 24 months.

So this is not a quarter to wait out. Plan on tight entry-tier supply through at least 2027 and build a mix that does not depend on any one brand showing up on time.

Want help rebuilding your mix for the next 30 days? Message us on WhatsApp or register as a client, and we will quote against what is actually in the building in Doral.