Samsung is catching up to Apple in the wearables space

Apple is currently dominating the smartwatch market. The Apple Watch is one of the most popular smartwatches in the market right now, but it looks like Apple’s market share could be slipping because based on the latest data from Counterpoint Research, it appears that Samsung is slowly starting to catch up.

As you can see in the graph below, it compares the market share of the various smartwatch makers against each other. In Q3 2020, Samsung’s share (in blue) was quite small compared to Apple, but now in Q3 2021, it has grown by quite a bit while Apple’s market share has actually shrunk.

This suggests that more people are buying Samsung’s smartwatches to the point where it is eating into Apple’s market share. We imagine that there are a couple of reasons for this. One of which is how the latest Apple Watch Series 7 is viewed by many as a marginal upgrade at best. The watch uses the same hardware as the previous model, save for the design which is slightly updated.

This means that users coming from previous generations have no real reason to upgrade, and with rumors of a more substantial upgrade coming in 2022, we wouldn’t be surprised if users are holding out for that instead.

Also, at Google I/O earlier this year, Google and Samsung announced a partnership to revamp its Wear OS platform, with some of Samsung’s newer models being eligible for that update when it is available. This could have also played a role in more customers deciding to hop on board the Samsung bandwagon.

It remains to be seen if a new Apple Watch Series 8 will result in Apple regaining their market share, but for now, it looks like Apple needs to start taking the competition more seriously.

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