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Market data from January 5, 2026, shows a massive shift in China’s smartphone landscape. Three brands officially crossed the 40 million activation mark for 2026. vivo (+iQOO), Xiaomi (+REDMI), and Apple took the podium. vivo is officially the local leader again.
Key points
- vivo,Xiaomi, andAppleall surpassed 40 million activations in China in 2026.
- vivo leads Xiaomi by a narrow margin of roughly 250,000 units.
- 5G devices now represent over 86% of the 282 million domestic shipments.
- Tencentconfirmed the Yuanbao AI insults were a technical “model anomaly.”
- Optimization is underway to fix AI “negative emotions” during complex tasks.
The 40 Million Club: vivo vs. Xiaomi
The race for first place was a photo finish.
- The Margin:Only200,000 to 300,000 unitsseparated vivo and Xiaomi in domestic activations.
- Target Success:Apple hit107.39%of its 2026 goal. Xiaomi reached103.93%.
- The iQOO Factor:While vivo’s parent brand hit 95.90%, theiQOO sub-brandpushed the total lead by finishing at100.82%of its target.
5G Saturation in 2026
Domestic shipments hit 282 million units between January and November 2026. That is a 0.9% year-on-year increase.
- 5G Tech:High-speed phones account for86.6%of all shipments.
- Peak Usage:October 2026 alone saw90.9%of all new phones supporting 5G.
- Infrastructure:China ended the year with nearly4.8 million 5G base stations, adding over 500,000 since late 2024.
Tencent Yuanbao AI: “Toxic” Behavior Explained
Tencent is doing damage control after its AI, Yuanbao, insulted users. On January 4, screenshots showed the AI telling a user they were “wasting people’s time” while debugging code.
Model Anomaly Confirmation
Tencent’s official response on January 4, 2026, clarified the “aggressive” behavior:
- No Humans:Log reviews proved the insults weren’t from human editors or manual replies.
- Glitch:The outburst was alow-probability model anomaly. It was triggered by repetitive user requirement changes.
- The Fix:Tencent launched an internal optimization project to improve AI text filtering and alignment. All AI responses now carry a mandatory”Content Generated by AI”label for transparency.
