Apple Led Smartwatch Market in First Half of 2020
Smartwatches shake off a coronavirus sales slump
Francis Scialabba
ByRyan Duffy
· less than 3 min read
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Smartwatches shook off a coronavirus sales slump in the first half of 2020. Global device shipments were flat year on year, but revenue grew 20%, according to Counterpoint Research.
Who led the pack in H1?
Pole position: Epic Games' enemy. Apple captured over 51% of global smartwatch shipment revenues. Watch shipments grew 22% YoY.
No. 2: Garmin had 9.4% of H1 revenues. Garmin's smartwatches are popular with athletes and myself (one of these is not like the other).
Bronze: Huawei captured 8.3% of global smartwatch H1 revenues, with a 57% annual leap in shipments. The Huawei GT2 (pictured above) was the third-best-selling smartwatch in H1, after No. 1 Apple Watch Series 5 and No. 2 Series 3.
Also ran: Samsung at 7.2%, Imoo at 5.1%, Amazfit, Fitbit at 2.4%, and Fossil at 2.1%. Ten percent of smartwatches are powered by Google's Wear OS, including Fossil's wearables. The company is still trying to acquire Fitbit.
India (+57% YoY), Europe (+9% YoY) and the US (+5% YoY), regions most affected by COVID, "saw a healthy growth in smartwatch shipments, which offset the decline in other markets," Counterpoint said. Fitbit and Garmin appear to be losing market share, offset by Garmin and Huawei shipments.
Apple dominates "in volume and value"...
...per Counterpoint Senior Analyst SuJeong Lim. Why?
Well, for one, it's Apple. Watch Series 5 runs on an Apple processor and the software just works. At its 2020 WWDC conference, Apple hyped up the machine learning features onboard the Watch, which can be used to track sleep or handwashing.
The Apple Watch has an FDA-cleared ECG app and a full detection feature. Samsung's new and well-received Galaxy Watch 3 has ECG and blood pressure features that the FDA is currently evaluating.
Zoom out: Scientists around the world are turning smartwatches into infectious disease field researchers. They're pairing wearables with companion AI software and testing detection capabilities for COVID-like symptoms, the flu, and other illnesses. Keyword is "testing"—researchers are still in the early innings.
Apple released the first Watch in 2015. In January, a Pew survey found that one in five Americans regularly wear a smartwatch. That's pretty rapid adoption for the mobile accessory, which continues to ship with new tech features.