Apple Retains Top Spot While Samsung Falls to 6th in Smart Watch Market in Q2

In the second quarter of this year, Apple solidified its lead in the global smart watch market with a 41% share. Samsung Electronics’ market share plunged by 43% year on year to place sixth.

According to Counterpoint Research, a global market research company, sales of global smart watches swelled 37% year on year in the second quarter.

Apple kept its number one position by recording 17-percent growth over the same quarter of last year. Counterpoint pointed out that Apple led the trend of making smart watches an independent wearable device by connecting mobile telecommunications to its smart watch.

Fitbit ranked second as its market share jumped from 8% to 21% in a year thanks to surging sales of the Versa launched in April. Fitbit's Versa and Ionic were second and fourth best selling smart watch models, respectively, in the second quarter.

Besides, Fossil (4%), Amazfit (4%) and Garmin (3%) took third to fifth place. Among them Amazfit brand of Huami, a producer of Xiaomi's wearable products, made the top five global brands for the first time. Garmin, a smart watch specialist, is expected to gain in popularity by loading a sensor that can recognize blood flows and oxygen saturation into the Fenix 5X Plus with the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March.

In the meantime, Samsung Electronics placed sixth with a market share of 2%. Counterpoint attributed Samsung's sluggish sales to its frequently changed portfolio and high prices. However, it said the recently released Galaxy Watch would boost Samsung’s smart watch sales in the third quarter.

"Most iPhone users have strong brand loyalty for Apple products so a high percentage of them choose Apple Watch. But we cannot say that many Samsung Galaxy phone users pick Samsung smart watchers while shunning those of other brands,” said a researcher at Counterpoint. “In order to attract people into a Samsung ecosystem, Samsung needs to maximize convenience when linking Samsung smart watches with Galaxy smartphones.”