 |
| Wear OS consolidates its position in the smartwatch market |
The Google Wear operating system has been pretty much stagnant for a few years, making the platform a leading addition to the entire smartwatch market.
However, due to the strong sales of the Galaxy Watch 4, the wearable operating system ranked second in the market share of smartwatches sold in the third quarter of 2021.
Counterpoint Research reports that Wear OS accounted for 17% of smartwatch shipments in the third quarter of 2021, up from 4% in the previous quarter.
The obvious reason for this big jump seems to be that it's now powering Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 series.
According to the report, Samsung's new smartwatches accounted for nearly 60% of smartwatch shipments in North America and Europe in the third quarter of 2021.
Due to the delay in the release of the Apple Watch Series 7, Apple's market share fell sharply in the third quarter.
With the introduction of the Galaxy Watch 4 series, Samsung had the highest quarterly shipments. This narrowed the gap to Apple and ranked second to Huawei.
Samsung is expanding its app ecosystem with Google's Android-based operating system instead of Tizen.
The brand has also expanded the range of options for users by launching two models: Basic and Classic. The new personalized features were also met with a good response.
It should be noted that the market share of Fitbit OS has remained largely unchanged during this period.
Wear OS recovers after strong Samsung sales
The future growth of Wear OS in the smartwatch market cannot be based on this kind of Samsung-related announcements in the third quarter of 2021.
The report shows that Samsung's future growth is forcing the company to adopt more affordable models. Galaxy Watch 4 starts at $249.
Google needs to make the Wear OS 3 platform available to more partners to make these products more competitive. Fitbit can also play an important role in extending Wear OS.