samsung: How Google-Samsung partnership is proving a big threat to Apple Watch – Times of India

NEW DELHI: According to research firm Counterpoint, the global smartwatch shipments in the third quarter of this year increased 16% compared to the same period last year. The quarter turned out to be best for Samsung. The South Korean tech giant achieved its highest quarterly shipments all thanks to its move from Tizen to the WearOS.
According to the report by Counterpoint, the market share of WearOS in Q3 soared to 17%, which is up from 4% in Q2 and 3% from Q3 of 2020. This growth of Samsung can be attributed to its partnership with Google and the company’s switch to the WearOS platform in 2021.

This growth of Samsung can be a big threat to Apple as its highest quarterly shipments are narrowing the gap between the market share of the two companies.
Reasons for Samsung’s growth
With its latest smartwatch series, Samsung has expanded its app ecosystem by using Android-based Wear OS instead of its Tizen. The brand has also broadened users’ range of choice by launching two models – basic and classic. Along with this, the added body composition feature has also fetched a good response.

Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst, Sujeong Lim said, “Samsung performed better than expected in the third quarter. Although the Galaxy Watch 4 series shipments were much higher than expected, more than 60% of the total shipments were sold in North America and Europe, where the share of mid-to-high price range models is high. To further increase its market share, Samsung is expected to launch affordable models within 2-3 years to target the fast-growing Asian market. One-third of smartwatches sold in Q3 2021 were priced under $100.”
How other companies performed
Apple still holds its top position in Q3 2021 but its share fell 10% YoY as its Watch Series 7 launch was delayed to the fourth quarter. Amazfit ranked third due to its growing popularity in Europe.

One of the highlights of this quarter was the rapid growth of Indian brands. Noise and boAt, which ranked first and second, respectively, in the Indian smartwatch market, shipped more than double the volume from the previous quarter.
In Q3 2021, there was also a significant change in OS market shares. Thanks to Samsung, which started using Wear OS with the Galaxy Watch 4, Google saw good growth in the wearable OS market.