According to a new report, Google Pixel has settled into a #4 slot in the US smartphone market ahead of the Pixel 10 launch, though growth has cooled off a bit.
Canalys reports that in Q2 2025 (April through June), Google Pixel managed to make up 3% of the overall US smartphone market. That’s on the back of shipping around 800,000 units during the quarter, up from around 700,000 in Q2 2024. It marks year-over-year growth of 13% and puts Google in fourth place in the overall market.
TCL, which previously topped Google, shrunk by 23% YoY in shipping around 700,000 devices in Q2 2025. Other miscellaneous brands also dropped by 34% YoY. Google now stands behind Motorola, which holds a 12% share of the market with 3.2 million shipments in Q2, representing 2% YoY growth.
Apple, of course, remains at the lead with 13.3 million devices shipped during the quarter, but that’s actually down 11% year over year. Samsung managed to grow by 38% during the quarter, shipping 8.3 million devices for an overall 31% share of the market to Apple’s 49%. Canalys attributes that to Galaxy A-series launches.
Google’s growth in the US market is meaningful, but certainly cooling off compared to past reports. While it’s hard to compare quarterly reports to a full year, Google Pixel was estimated to make up shy of 5% of the US market in 2023, while TCL was behind. With Google set to launch the Pixel 10 series in August, its Q3 numbers should grow, but we’ll have to wait a few months to see where the company really stands in 2025. Last year, the Pixel 9 launch delivered Google’s “highest-ever” quarterly sales.
Canalys notes that growth for new brands is tough in the US, as the top three brands currently make up over 90% of shipments.
Successful long-term strategies for smartphone vendors in the US require significant scale, but over 90% of the market is held by the three largest vendors. That leaves a very small opportunity for the remaining vendors, focused on prepaid carrier slots or non-carrier-driven channel strategies. Currently, OnePlus and Nothing are attempting non-carrier-focused strategies, focusing on their direct websites, Best Buy, Walmart and Amazon, but their current scale remains limited, and ambitions are dependent upon scale in other regions. Reducing the large investments required to be included in portfolios or finding new incentives for vendors to build their own brick-and-mortar stores could help improve the market’s attractiveness.
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