It seems that the market is polarised between smart watches and fitness trackers – it is heavily skewed towards the latter. But the smartwatch category is in steep decline as more of these “useless fruity devices fill the sock draw”.
International Data Corporation (IDC) has said that the world's smartwatch market declined 32% YoY in Q2, 2016 down substantially to 3.5 million units from 5.1 million shipped in Q2, 2015. It defines a smart watch as a wearable that can run third party apps like the Apple Watch, Moto 360, and Gear S2 – it excludes fitness trackers.
As usual Apple held the top position but it was the only vendor to experience a cataclysmic drop – it lost 55% YoY growth to 1.6 million units while Samsung at number two spot picked up 51% growth to .6 million units.
Lenovo was a surprise entrant at number three spot picking up 75% growth – admittedly from a lower base. LG also sold .3 million units, up 26%. Garmin was number five with .1 million units, up 25%.
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IDC is not backwards when criticising Apple that popularised the category then attempted to exploit it via an expensive, aspirational, yet very limited function device. It hopes the new Watch OS and Watch 2 will breathe life back into this product.
Buoyed by its success over Apple, Samsung’s new Gear S3 looks even better as it moves to decouple the smartwatch from the smartphone and this has opened up distribution via the Telco channel.
The Gear S2 is all we can comment on (iTWire review here), and it is a great extension to the smartphone offering good crossover fitness features and smart notifications. I think its rotating bezel shat all over Apple’s crown.
There are rumours of three editions – a Classic (Sports), Explorer (IP rated), and a luxury version with a very Rolex like rotating bezel. There are rumours of a version for bicycle use (cadence) and of course these will integrate with Samsung’s Bluetooth IconX wireless buds.
It is likely these will have the universal embedded sim for 3/4G use, but so far people have baulked at paying two carrier fees. Sensors will likely include an altimeter (altitude), a barometer (atmospheric pressure), speedometer (velocity), pedometer (steps), Heart Rate (Continuous), and GPS (location tracking and mapping). It may also have V02 estimation. If this is the case, it will be only marginally behind Microsoft’s amazing 11 sensors in the Band 2.
Whether this will work with iOS is still unclear – Samsung announced it was working on iOS for the S2 in January.