China's National Day holidays have opened one of the fourth quarter's most important promotional windows for consumer electronics. For smartphones, the timing is especially significant: Apple, Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo and Honor have all launched new models since September, while Huawei introduced its Mate 90 series on October 1.
Samsung Electronics said its new Galaxy Z series foldable phones have beaten expectations after launch, with sales in the first month up significantly from the previous generation. The company does not think Apple's upcoming iPhone Duo will derail demand for Samsung's foldable smartphones.
Climax Technology said elevated memory prices are pressuring its gross margin in the second half of 2026, while longer customer validation cycles for substitute memory parts are also dampening its outlook. The wireless communications company said its overall second-half outlook remains conservative.
Meta will link Naver Map's walking-navigation feature to its Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta AI glasses in 2026, as it moves to strengthen its presence in South Korea before rival AI glasses from Google and Samsung Electronics arrive. According to South Korean media outlets Seoul Economic Daily and ETNews, the deal would make Naver the first South Korean company to partner with Meta in the AI glasses category.
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro series lifted first-week sales in China by 12% year over year, giving the soft smartphone market a much-needed boost and pushing Apple to the top of weekly sales with a 33% market share. The strong start underscores the brand loyalty that premium customers continue to show toward Apple's flagship phones, even amid market volatility.
After succeeding Tim Cook as Apple's chief executive, John Ternus is considering a broad organizational overhaul aimed at strengthening an engineering-centered R&D system, according to Bloomberg and Reuters. He is also weighing less reliance on Apple's traditional spring and fall product cycles in favor of more flexible and frequent device launches throughout the year.
Under pressure from rising memory prices, Samsung Electronics has raised the South Korean launch prices of its Galaxy S26 series about seven months after release. Most models went up by KRW149,600(US$110), while the top-end Galaxy S26 Ultra 1TB rose to KRW2.8215 million.
Huawei unveiled its Mate 90 smartphone series on October 1, with Richard Yu, Huawei executive director and chairman of the Consumer BG, introducing the new devices alongside a new generation of in-house chips and imaging hardware. Every model in the Mate 90 lineup, from the standard version to the flagship tier, uses Huawei's latest self-developed Tau (τ) chip platform.
Honor launched its first foldable smartphone in Taiwan, the Magic V6, on September 30, about six months after formally entering the local smartphone market in April 2026. The company hopes the premium flagship will strengthen its brand while helping increase its market share and revenue in Taiwan.
Apple's A20 Pro chip has dropped traditional package-on-package (PoP) packaging in favor of Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM), with memory and processor dies laid out side by side to potentially improve packaging yield and thermal performance, according to a teardown analysis by TechInsights. The findings come as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and Apple's A20 Pro draw comparisons around 2-nanometer chip manufacturing and memory packaging.
South Korea's leading telecommunications operator, SK Telecom (SKT), recently established SK Hyper and SK Horizon in quick succession. The moves mark a pivotal shift for telecommunications AI, signaling a transition from internal operational optimization toward full-scale infrastructure monetization.
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