Counterpoint Research has a brand new report detailing the smartwatch market, and Put on OS is a big winner. Simply three months in the past, Google and Samsung teamed as much as resurrect Put on OS, with the brand new Put on OS 3.0 debuting on the Galaxy Watch 4. Counterpoint’s newest knowledge has the partnership down as a powerful success, with Put on OS market share rocketing from 4 % in Q2 2022 to 17 % in Q3 2022.
Google and Samsung’s team-up was an entire reboot of each corporations’ smartwatch methods. Google was floundering on the backside of the gross sales charts, having seemingly misplaced curiosity in Put on OS for years. The final main OS launch was Put on OS 2.0 in 2018, and that had been stagnating in the marketplace for years. The main Put on OS tech companions from the early days, like Samsung, LG, Sony, and Motorola, had left the platform, with solely vogue manufacturers like Fossil hanging round to make watches. Qualcomm was the principle SoC supplier, and whereas Apple was revolutionizing the ability you will get from a smartwatch SoC, Qualcomm wasn’t actually placing in a full effort and strangled the Put on OS marketplace for years with sub-par chips.
Samsung left Google’s smartwatch ecosystem after the preliminary launch and struck out by itself with Tizen OS. Tizen is a Linux-based OS made by Samsung, constructed out of the ashes of different failed cellular Linux OSes, like Nokia’s Maemo and MeeGo, Intel’s Moblin, and Samsung’s Bada and LiMo. The OS was described by one safety researcher as “the worst code I’ve ever seen” and does not have a ton of third-party app assist. Samsung’s power is in {hardware}, and in contrast to Qualcomm, Samsung’s Exynos division has usually been churning out flagship-class smartwatch SoCs utilizing a contemporary transistor dimension and first rate ARM CPU designs. Combining the 2 has meant pairing Google’s OS, software program, and app ecosystem with Samsung’s {hardware}, advertising and marketing, and distribution prowess, a mixture that constructed the Android telephone juggernaut that exists right now.
The partnership is already figuring out for each corporations. Counterpoint says: “Because of the launch of the Galaxy Watch 4 sequence, Samsung achieved its highest quarterly shipments, narrowing the hole with Apple and reclaiming second place from Huawei.” Samsung’s market share is up from 9.9 % to 14.4 %, yr over yr.
Apple remains to be in first place with the Apple Watch, however Counterpoint says Apple’s smartwatch market share is down 10 % yr over yr in Q3, to 21.8 % due to the delay of the Series 7 watch into This autumn. It is a good guess that Apple’s market share will return up with the discharge of latest {hardware}, however at present, Put on OS is inside hanging distance of the No. 1 spot, a place that was unthinkable only a yr in the past.
Put on OS in all probability nonetheless has some progress left in it, too. Proper now Put on OS 3 is solely obtainable on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4, and with Google saying companions ought to have updates obtainable within the second half of 2022, it looks like Samsung has a one-year exclusivity deal for the brand new OS. Qualcomm is planning a “next-generation” “ground-up redesign” of its smartwatch chips in 2022, so we’ll in all probability see some non-Samsung OEMs bounce on board with fashionable, competent smartwatch designs for Put on OS 3.
If we glance to the smartphone market, another excuse Android gadgets usually outsell Apple is a lower cost level, and Put on OS 3 is not making the most of that but. Counterpoint says that “one-third of smartwatches bought in Q3 2021 have been priced underneath $100,” and the analysis agency expects Samsung to sort out the market in a couple of years in an try to take the No. 1 OEM spot. The Galaxy Watch 4 begins at $249.99.
Google additionally must do one thing with Fitbit, which is at present 4.4 % of the smartwatch market. Fitbit mentioned it will definitely plans to make Put on OS watches, as properly.
