Report: Despite U.S. troubles, Huawei beats Samsung in smartwatch sales

Smartwatches have grown in popularity during recent years. The advancement of health monitoring and wearable technology has meant that a huge variety of smartwatches are now available from global brands, although some are more popular than the other. Thanks to a new report from market researchers over at Canalys, we have an idea on how the global smartwatch market is doing.

As expected, Apple still ranks at the top for Q1 2020, with 5.2 million shipments made and 36.3 percent of the market share. However, comparing that against the data from Q1 2019, this means that the Cupertino-based company recorded a -13 percent annual growth. The report says that in North America and Europe, AirPods replaced the Apple Watch as the Apple accessory of choice for iPhone users.

After Apple, Huawei tops the best-of-the-rest league, with 2.1 million smartwatch shipments made during Q1 2020. A market share of 12.4 percent during Q1 2020 also means that Huawei recorded the highest annual growth in the list at 113 percent, which has seen them overtake Samsung into 2nd place.

However, it’s worth noting that these figures don’t take into account the performance of brands from Q2–Q4 2019. Data is simply measured against two quarters from different years to calculate growth over the year. In this sense, it’s worth noting that the Huawei Watch GT 2 was included as a freebie with certain new purchases of Huawei’s P40 series.

Meanwhile, Samsung maintainted a steady growth of 46 percent (2nd after Huawei), increasing their market share from 9.6 percent to 12.4 percent from Q1 2019–Q1 2020. Notably, Garmin‘s increased focus on the smartwatch segment has resulted in a 39 percent growth over the course of the year, controlling 7.3 percent of the market share during Q1 2020.

As for the remainder of 2020, we’re expecting to see a bunch of new smartwatch models from some notable brands. Apple’s 6th iteration of the Apple Watch is set to arrive later this year, while Samsung is also planning to release a successor to the Galaxy Watch soon. Huawei, for their part, have continued to push the benefits of their ecosystem with a growing range of products—including smartwatches.

For the full report, click here.

Related reading