The Pixel jumps ahead of a surprising competitor in US sales race

Summary

Google is once again back in the top four in US smartphone shipments, overtaking TCL in Q2 2025 with a 3 percent market share.
Apple and Samsung still lead the way, with 49 percent and 31 percent market share, respectively.
The Google Pixel 10 launch event is set for August 20, and the new phones should give Google a sales bump in the second half of the year.

Ahead of its Pixel 10 launch event on August 20, Google has reason to celebrate. According to the latest figures from Canalys, the Google Pixel has regained fourth place in the US smartphone market.

Canalys reports that in the second quarter of 2025 (Q2), Google shipped 800,000 smartphones, capturing a three percent market share in the US. Compared to last year, this represents a 13 percent year-over-year growth and places Google in fourth in US smartphone sales for Q2 2025 (from April to June).

Google takes over the fourth place spot from TCL, which saw its shipments decline by 23 percent in Q2 2025, dropping to 700,000 units. While TCL may not seem all that popular compared to Google’s Pixel lineup, TCL is known for its entry-level and mid-range smartphones in the US, which are quite affordable.

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Google only trails behind the giants

Apple and Samsung still hold the top spots

With Google reclaiming its fourth place position in US smartphone sales, it now trails only Motorola, Samsung, and Apple. Considering how giant all three of those companies are, Google certainly has its work cut out for it if it wants to climb up the ladder more.

Apple still maintains the lead in US smartphone sales, with the Cupertino-based company shipping 13.3 million devices during the quarter, substantially higher than Google’s 800,000. However, it’s not all good news for Apple. It saw an 11 percent year-over-year decrease last quarter, shipping 1.6 million fewer units than it did in Q2 2024, which saw it ship 14.9 million smartphones. Despite its drop in shipments, Apple still held 49 percent of the market share in Q2 2025, remaining a dominant force in the US market.

On the other hand, Samsung experienced 38 percent annual growth in Q2 2025, shipping 8.3 million units. Although Samsung launched its Galaxy S25 series in January, Canalys attributes Samsung’s growth to the shipments of its Galaxy A-series devices, its range of affordable smartphones. That said, Samsung’s US market share in Q2 2025 is at 31 percent.

Google’s next closest competitor is Motorola, which holds the third spot in US sales. Motorola shipped 3.2 million devices in Q2 2025, capturing 12 percent of the market share, but its year-over-year growth rate was only two percent.

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Google has a big challenge ahead

The Pixel 10 series will help, but is it enough?

There’s no doubt that Google reclaiming the fourth spot in US smartphone sales, and seeing 13 percent year-over-year growth, is a win for the Mountain View-based company. However, there is still a tough road ahead for the company. Canalys warns that smartphone demand in the US is looking “tepid,” which could impact Pixel sales going forward.

“The market only grew 1% despite vendors frontloading inventory, indicating tepid demand in an increasingly pressured economic environment and a widening gap between sell-in and sell-through,” Canalys states in its report. “Even if smartphones remain exempted from tariffs, many other categories are impacted, which might greatly impact consumers’ spending patterns and keep smartphone demand modest in H2.”

The Pixel 9 series helped deliver the company’s best quarterly sales to date, so the Pixel 10 series has a lot to live up to.

While Google is likely to see a boost in smartphone sales in Q3 and Q4 of 2025 from the launch of the Pixel 10 series, it will be interesting to see if it matches or exceeds the performance of the Pixel 9 series last year. The Pixel 9 series helped deliver the company’s best quarterly sales ever, so the Pixel 10 series has a lot to live up to. If the market becomes sluggish, as Canalys suggests, that task will be even more difficult.

Combined, Apple and Samsung held an 80 percent market share in Q2 2025 in the US. If Google ever wants to break out of its low single-digit market share in the US, it needs a breakthrough. This will be very challenging for Google to achieve, especially in economically uncertain times, and if the Pixel 10 series doesn’t live up to the hype. Based on the leaks and official images we’ve seen from Google, the Pixel 10 series will closely resemble the Pixel 9 series, so it will be interesting to see what (if any) big surprises Google has in store for the Pixel 10 launch. All will be revealed on August 20.