Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
TL; DR
- A study found that Wear OS will capture 21% of the market share outside China by 2023.
- This number is predicted to rise to 27% by 2024.
- Meanwhile, Apple's market share is expected to drop from 53% to 49%.
Wear operating system has long struggled to keep pace with the Apple Watch in terms of shipment market share. But a new study shows that Wear OS will take a bite out of Apple's lead this year.
According to a study by Counterpoint researchIn 2023, smartwatch shipments outside China consisted of 53% Watch OS devices, 21% Wear OS devices, and 26% other. However, forecasts predict that this balance will change in 2024 as there are more options that use Google's wearable operating system, such as the OnePlus Watch 2 and Pixel Watch.
By 2024, the research expects the Wear OS market share outside China to rise to 27%. Meanwhile, Apple Watch shipments are expected to drop from 53% to 49%. The other category is also expected to decline by two percentage points. This would mean that just over one in four smartwatch shipments could be Wear OS devices.
Meanwhile, the numbers for China look completely different. There, Huawei's Harmony OS reigns supreme, which will hold 48% of the market in 2023 and expects an increase of 13% in 2024. In comparison, Apple captured 28% of the market share, while other operating systems captured 24% in 2023. These figures are expected to drop to 25% and 14% respectively by 2024.
Google has confirmed that it will talk about the next version of Wear OS at Google I/O 2024 in May. The company said it would discuss “how to design and build for the increasing number of device sizes.” This statement seems to be in line with reports that Google could be working on two different sizes for the Pixel Watch 3.