North American smartwatch shipments up 38% this year, and Samsung’s market share is growing

Smartwatches didn’t exactly explode out of the gate like smartphones, but sales are growing steadily. A new report from Canalys shows a sizeable 38% increase in year-over-year North American shipments last quarter. Almost everyone is moving more wearables, but Samsung is seeing the largest proportional improvement.

While Samsung is gaining ground, Apple still owns the lion’s share of the smartwatch market in North America. Its quarterly shipments increased from 2.2 million to 2.9 million, leaving it with 37.9%. Fitbit’s shipments grew modestly by 300,000, but its market share fell from 28.3% to 24.1%. That’s thanks to Samsung’s good fortune. Samsung moved 800,000 units in Q2 of this year, compared to 400,000 last year. That puts Samsung at 10.6% of the market.

What about the rest of the market? Garmin is holding steady, but is now behind Samsung with 7% of the market. Fossil is below that with 300,000 shipments and a 4.1% market share. Fossil is, of course, the largest Wear OS device maker. There are probably a few more Wear OS devices lumped in with the 1.3 million “other” shipments, but not enough to get close to Samsung’s Tizen market share.

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