Apple Watch Dominates the Wearables Market and Samsung Overtakes Fitbit
The smartwatch market or wearables market is still growing, and Apple seems to continue to dominate this product category from a distance. The latest Strategy Analytics report on wearable device sales reveals that Apple Watch is still the market leader, followed by two "relevant" companies in the market: Samsung and Fitbit. In fact, Samsung has finally surpassed Fitbit, now in second place in the world.
Apple delivered 6.8 million Apple Watch devices in the third quarter of 2019, a significant increase over the same period last year, when it delivered "just" 4.5 million. This value represents an increase of 51% from year to year, huge for any category of devices. In fact, the company now owns almost half of the market: 47.9%. This is an increase of 2.9 percent from year to year, last year the company holding 45%.
Fitbit, especialy with theri Versa 2 model (you can read more about the Versa 2 here), which used to be in second place, after Apple, fell to third, despite increasing year on year. Thus, the company that was just bought by Google now owns 11.3% of the market, with 1.6 million units of bracelets and smart watches delivered, compared to 1.5 million in the same period in 2018. However, the share of market decreased from 15% to 11.3%.
Finally, Samsung seems to be taking over this market, after launching Galaxy Active models and newer Galaxy Fit models. The South Korean manufacturer delivered 1.9 million units of wearable devices in Q3 2019, an increase of 0.8 million from 2018, or 73%, which exceeds that recorded by Apple. Samsung now holds 13.4% of the market and is the world's second largest manufacturer of smart watches.
The remaining 27.5% of the market goes to the "others" category, with each manufacturer such as Xiaomi, Fossil, Huawei and others producing such devices far too small in comparison. The total amount of devices to carry in the category "others" is slightly more than half of what Apple sold during this period: only 3.9 million units. For the entire quarter 3 of 2019 were delivered 14 million wearable devices, an increase of 42% from year to year.
