Smartwatch sales estimate places Samsung as No.1

The Apple Watch may be grabbing headlines this week, but we know that the smartwatch market is already bustling with competing products. In fact, recent figures published by Statista suggest that over 4 million smartwatches were sold in 2014 and that Samsung is leading the field.

According to the data, Samsung’s Gear series has propelled the company to the front of the smartwatch market, with approximately 1.2 million smartwatches sold in 2014. Samsung products already account for 17.7 percent of the market.

Building on the popularity of its smartphone brand, Samsung has released a range of successive smartwatch products, has capitalized on the popular health and fitness aspect of wearables, and was also one of the first to market with a SIM-enabled smartwatch with the Gear S. Even so, Samsung’s lead is not as insurmountable as its grip on the smartphone market, especially given the potential room for growth.

The data is not limited to just Android based products either. Pebble, an early Kickstarter entry into the market, comes in second place with around 700,000 smartwatches sold, followed by FitBit on 600,000. The closest Android competitor to Samsung appears to be Sony, followed by Lenovo and LG, with ASUS at the bottom of the top 10. The Moto 360 presumably falls under Lenovo’s brand now.

Although these sales estimates don’t come close to smartphone numbers, this evolving market is clearly healthy and diverse with competition. Do you see the publicity surrounding the Apple Watch producing a boom in wearables or will the market remain stuck as a niche?