BEIJING, March 19 (Reuters) - Apple ( AAPL ) posted a 23% surge in China smartphone sales in the first nine weeks of 2026, bucking a broader market decline as some Android phone makers raised prices in response to higher costs for memory chips.

China's overall smartphone market fell 4% year-on-year in the January-to-early-March period, with government subsidies introduced at the start of the year doing little to revive sluggish consumer demand, data on Thursday from research firm Counterpoint showed.

Apple's ( AAPL ) gains were driven by e-commerce discounts and its eligibility for state subsidies on the base iPhone 17 model.

The U.S. tech giant's tight grip on its supply chain leaves it better placed than rivals to absorb the impact of soaring memory chip costs, and it is expected to hold the line on pricing while competitors raise theirs, the report said. "Apple ( AAPL ) is unlikely to follow suit, instead absorbing part of the margin pressure and using the situation to potentially expand its market share," Counterpoint said.

Amid the rising costs of memory chips, Chinese Android phone makers OPPO and vivo have announced price increases on some existing models to take effect this month, a move Counterpoint said is partly designed to gauge consumer reaction ahead of new product launches and inform pricing for next-generation handsets. Huawei, meanwhile, could benefit from its reliance on domestic suppliers, which tend to charge less than international memory chipmakers, giving it a cost buffer against rising memory prices, Counterpoint said, adding the company is likely to use that advantage to grab more share in the low-to-mid-end market. Counterpoint expects the Chinese market to stay under pressure from March through May, with some relief in early June when China's mid-year "618" shopping festival typically unleashes a wave of promotional activity. The broader memory cost crunch is forecast to persist throughout 2026, forcing handset makers into difficult trade-offs between managing costs, protecting margins and hitting shipment targets.