Smartwatch Shipments Jump 35 Percent in 1Q21

Global smartwatch shipments in grew 35% in the first quarter of 2021, according to Counterpoint Research. Apple maintained its leadership position, catalyzing the overall market growth by recording a 50% increase in the demand for the new Series 6 models. As a result, Apple saw its market share climb by 3% points.

Samsung’s shipments also rose 27%, with the popularity of the Galaxy Watch 3 and Galaxy Watch Active series. But the South Korean vendor’s growth was below the market average and it saw a small dip in its market share. Huawei continued to lose share compared to a strong quarter a year ago. These volumes include basic smartwatches with low-level proprietary OS or RTOS (like from Xiaomi and OPPO), kids smartwatches (like from BBK, Huawei and Vodafone Neo) and high-level smartwatches (like from Apple, Samsung and Garmin).

“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. This may drive Samsung to launch a mid-price-tier model to boost growth. Huawei continued to face headwinds because of the declining smartwatch sales and how well Huawei watches are optimized for its smartphones. Will be interesting to see when Huawei launches its first watch based on Harmony OS, as it hinted at the Huawei Analyst Summit last month. This should kickstart a new ecosystem for developers to build experiences for the wrist. But it will warrant a Harmony OS phone as well for the complete experience. HONOR, spun off from Huawei, should open up new opportunities for players such as Google and Qualcomm,“ said Sujeong Lim, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research.

In terms of smartwatch OS platforms, Apple’s WatchOS captured more than a third of the market with a growing attach rate to its base of billion iPhone users. Google’s Wear OS has not yet achieved such success in smartwatches. This is because most of the major smartwatch brands have developed and installed their own proprietary OS. Further, Wear OS has been lacking behind in terms of features, battery optimization and chipset support. This has limited its share to a mere 4% of the global smartwatch market. However, this trend will change soon considering the Google-Samsung partnership announced at the Google I/O last week. Google will integrate Tizen OS with Google Wear OS to reinvigorate the market and go full force after the 3.5 billion Android user base.