Samsung has made a strong comeback in the connected watch industry, threatening the ones from Apple. Wear OS’s market share has increased from 4% to 17% due to this rise. According to a survey by the analytical firm Counterpoint, if the Cupertino business continues to be the market leader, Samsung has just taken a significant leap to the top.
In August 2021, the Korean business unveiled the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic. These alone were enough to stir up Google’s dormant Wear OS. It had a 4% market share in the second quarter. As a result, it only accounted for around 17% of revenue in the third quarter. This achievement is all the more remarkable given that only Samsung’s two new watches come with Wear OS 3, the most recent version of the operating system, even though Fossil and TicWatch released devices with Wear OS 2 at the same time. These statistics should be enough to persuade more builders to join the Wear OS boat.
In the third quarter, Apple’s Watch OS, which runs on its smartwatches, had only a 22 percent market share. Compared to last year, when Apple had 28 percent of watch sales on watchOS, the company has lost 6 market share points. Apple also sold about 16 percent more watches in the third quarter of 2021 than in the same time the previous year. And the market appears to be doing well since it grew by double digits in the prior quarter, thus making it remain the market leader in terms of watch sales, despite an almost 10% drop in sales this quarter compared to last year. On the other hand, Samsung has never sold as many watches as Apple and hence ranks second.