Galaxy Watch 4 propels Wear OS market share, closes in on Apple’s WatchOS

Wear OS is in the end turning into a factor, and it is all due to Samsung. A new report from Counterpoint Research presentations spectacular enlargement for Wear OS in the smartphone market percentage, and the brand new Galaxy Watch 4 seems to be the principle motive force.

The file presentations that Wear OS accounted for 17% of smartwatch shipments in Q3, gaining on Apple’s WatchOS platform, which held 22% of the market and is the only greatest smartwatch OS.

When having a look on the market percentage by means of OEM, Samsung used to be essentially the most obvious gainer, having completed its best possible quarterly smartwatch shipments. This is particularly on the expense of Huawei and Apple, the previous of which noticed an enormous decline from the similar quarter a yr in the past. Counterpoint Research Senior Analyst Sujeong Lim says that this used to be because of Samsung acting higher than anticipated in the 3rd quarter.

Lim notes that deficient Wear OS adoption has marred Google’s smartwatch platform for years, principally because of loss of customization, deficient potency, and gradual efficiency. “However, the partnership with Samsung from this yr has received a foothold for Google to increase its presence in the wearable OS market and turns out able to become right into a extra open wearable platform from this time ahead.”

It is helping Samsung’s case that Galaxy Watch 4 stays the one smartwatch to run Google’s new Wear OS 3 platform with its personal One UI Watch sitting on most sensible. This is as a result of Google in the end permits OEMs to customise Wear OS 3 to compare the enjoy discovered on coinciding smartphones to offer a cohesive enjoy throughout gadgets.

However, most of the best possible Wear OS watches would possibly not obtain the brand new replace till a minimum of mid-2022, which might impede the gross sales of in a different way just right Wear OS gadgets just like the Fossil Gen 6.

Until then, customers in the most recent Wear OS enjoy must persist with the Galaxy Watch 4, which already sees some spectacular Black Friday offers that may most likely spice up gross sales even additional.

It shall be attention-grabbing to peer how the platform grows, each in market percentage and in options, when extra OEMs can improve their watches to Wear OS 3. But to this point, it seems that that Google and Samsung’s partnership is paying off.