Smartwatch market exploding: 16% of adults in the US now own one

Although the smartphone market is in a pretty serious downturn right now, the smartwatch market is doing incredibly well. New market research from the NPD Group concludes that a whopping 16 percent of adults in the United States own a smartwatch, as of November 2018.

That figure is up four percentage points from the same time in 2017. Additionally, the smartwatch market is now a $5 billion industry, a 51 percent increase over 2017. Per-unit-sales also went up by a whopping 61 percent year-over-year.

In other words, smartwatches are selling like hotcakes and the momentum doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

As one would expect, the market leaders in the U.S. are Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit. Those three companies dominate 88 percent of the American smartwatch market, with the Apple Watch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch, and the Fitbit Versa as the leading models from each respective company.

However, smaller players like Fossil and Garmin are making big strides.

According to the NPD Group, younger adults are the primary market for smartwatches, with adults aged 18-34 representing 23 percent of the total market. Health-oriented innovations — like Apple’s incorporation of an ECG monitor in the series four Apple Watch — will hopefully convince more adults aged 35 and older to start adopting smartwatch technology.

The two major companies curiously missing from the market are Google and Amazon. Google appears to be gung ho to get a piece of the smartwatch pie since news broke that it is looking for talent to run its wearable division and it purchased a large chunk of intellectual property from Fossil. However, there’s no word on Amazon creating a wearable quite yet.

What do you think? Do you own a smartwatch? If so, do you find it indispensable? If not, are you uninterested? Let us know in the comments.

NEXT: Fitbit Versa vs Apple Watch Series 4: Which smartwatch is right for you?