Wesley Hilliard
As the overall smartwatch market grows, Apple continues to hold its lead with the popular Apple Watch Series 6 driving sales.
Research from Counterpoint shows that other platforms are struggling to gain market share in the smartwatch market. Apple Watch sits comfortably at 33.5% of shipments while second place is Tizen at only 8%. The remainder of the market share is distributed among several smaller brands.
The commanding lead that the Apple Watch holds is despite a consolidation in the smartwatch market thanks to acquisitions and mergers from major companies trying to compete with Apple's efforts. The Apple Watch continues to dominate with 33.5% of the global smartwatch shipments share in fiscal Q2 2021.
"Apple was able to further solidify its leadership position in the market by widening the portfolio from Watch SE to Series 6 at the right time," said senior analyst Sujeong Lim. "This may drive Samsung to launch a mid-price-tier model to boost growth."
Google's WearOS for smartwatches has failed to gain traction in the market with only 3.9% of shipments. Google recently announced a partnership with Samsung to bolster its wearable business along with the acquisition of Fitbit. These three brands combined could represent more than 15% of shipments in the future.
"This is a great move by Google to accelerate its ambitions for the wearables space," said Vice President of Research Neil Shah. "It can build a robust portfolio of Wear devices integrating the best of all the three worlds - Tizen OS, Wear OS and Fitbit OS. The consolidation brings more power to Google's Wear platform and will attract more developers to build newer experiences for the wrist."
Apple introduced Apple Fitness+, which combines fitness tracking on the Apple Watch with video exercises on Apple TV or iPad for a new level of synergy.
Rumors about the "Apple Watch Series 7" show a continued commitment to health tracking and life-saving features. Apple could introduce a blood pressure monitor or some form of glucose tracking in the new smartwatch. Such features in a $400 smartwatch would ensure Apple's market control continued into 2022.
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Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
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13 Comments
True to form, Apple develops a runaway hit with the Watch, and the others realize they have to start over if they want to compete. Is it really going to take three companies to compete with Apple effectively?
Supporting the premise of the story, my wife's AW is out for delivery now. Some of you have noted the major improvements in 6 generations of the watch.
For me, even the original did what I wanted it to do and pretty well, which was basically to track my workouts which are mostly running and calisthenic type of stuff. I've enjoyed some of the new features but disabled a lot of them, such as most alerts.
I'd recommended the watch to my wife for a long time (along with Fitbit etc, whatever works for her) for motivating her fitness. Finally the newer health features and EKG got her attention, as well as the variety of straps. She likes pretty things.