Juniper Research said the Apple Watch accounted for 52 percent of smatwatch shipments in 2015 – compared to Android Wear which it said made up less than 10 percent of shipments. But just how much potential exists in the smartwatch market is still far from clear. Previous year we saw the excellent Huawei Watch come out of nowhere, Motorola introduced a new version of the Moto 360 and big names like Fossil, and even TAG Heuer adopted Google’s platform.
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Samsung’s move to push its own Tizen operating system on the Gear S2 also appears to have failed, as Juniper claimed that it did not achieve “strong sales” and that most buyers prefer cheaper, entry-level devices.
Juniper noted that while the smartwatch ecosystem is growing rapidly, the lack of a strong use case continues to shackle the overall market.
“Its popularity far eclipsed that of rival vendors, with (Samsung) Android Wear shipments comprising less than 10 percent of sales for the year”, the research said. ‘Newer devices have offered more polished looks and subtly different functions, but no large changes in device capabilities or usage.
And while smartwatch vendors have filled out their product lines, allowing for customisation and price segmentation, there has not been any great leap forward that revolutionised the category.
This report is only considering units shipped to retailers and not actually sold to end consumers so it’s not actually saying that 50 percent of all smartwatches sold last year happened to be from Apple, but if its figures are anything to go by, then the company’s first wearable device certainly did well for itself in its debut year. Well, taking Apple’s freakish brand power and relentless marketing out of the equation it appears that people simply expect more from a smartwatch, and in many cases a fitness tracker fulfils the extras that they want.
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Apple is clearly the leader in a smartwatch market that is still in its infancy and still very small.
