The world smartwatch market grew last year with Apple once again leading the way and Fitbit’s share shrinking

Smartwatches have been around for a while, longer than the Apple Watch, but it is difficult to argue that anyone does it better than Apple. The latest smartwatch market analysis from Counterpoint confirms this with Apple consolidating their position as the market leader in an ever-growing market.

The report from Counterpoint released today showed that the smartwatch market grew by 13% YoY and continued its double-digit growth for the fifth consecutive quarter thanks to strong results from Apple and Samsung. Apple once again accounted for more than a third of the smartwatch shipments, even growing its dominance from 35.9% of the market to 36.1%. This is expected to grow even more in the coming year according to Associate Director of Counterpoint, Sujeong Lim:

“The high brand loyalty of iPhone users is one of the success factors of the Apple Watch. This popularity appears to be higher among the younger generation, making Apple an irreplaceable market leader. Of course, everything was possible because the high performance of the product and the excellent connection among supported iOS devices. We believe that Apple’s market share is likely to rise further by the end of this year.”

Samsung’s switch to Google’s Wear OS 3 looks to be paying dividends for them. They increased their share of the smartwatch market from 7.8% to 10.1% now. Interestingly, their shipments for the year increased 46% YoY which is a significant increase. They are currently the only smartwatch manufacturer using Wear OS 3 thanks to an exclusivity agreement with Google and, likely not coincidentally, are also the only Wear OS manufacturer in the top 8 of smartwatch manufacturers. With the exclusive use of Wear OS set to end soon it will be interesting to see how other manufacturers fare in the coming year.

Huawei’s share of the market dropped but their shipments stayed steady. Given the trials and tribulations they have encountered in recent years they won’t be unhappy with that. With some impressive looking smartwatches on the horizon for Huawei it will be interesting to see if they can increase sales in the face of restrictions imposed by the US.

Garmin lost share of the market as well, but their shipments improved and given their higher pricing were third in terms of revenue. Garmin have a big presence here in Australia with some great fitness hybrid watches, so it is no surprise to see their success.

Fitbit on the other hand has undergone quite a few changes in the last couple of years after their acquisition by Google and with the delayed release of Wear OS 3 to manufacturers did not release any new smartwatches last year. As such their share of the smartwatch market fell significantly from 4.1% to 2.7% which is a large decrease in a growing market.

2022 looks to be a big year for smartwatches with Google unleashing Wear OS 3 to all smartwatch manufacturers and Apple doing all they can to maintain their lead in the face of what appears to be strong opposition from Samsung. We can’t wait to see what innovations this new competition brings.