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Wear OS poised for growth as Apple Watch shipments expected to dip in 2024
- A study found that Wear OS grabbed 21% of the market share in 2023 outside of China.
- It’s predicted that number will climb to 27% in 2024.
- Meanwhile, Apple’s market share is expected to drop from 53% to 49%.
Wear OS has long struggled to keep pace with the Apple Watch in terms of shipment market share. But a new study says the Wear OS is poised to take a bite out of Apple’s lead this year.
According to a study from Counterpoint Research, 2023 smartwatch shipments outside of China consisted of 53% Watch OS devices, 21% Wear OS devices, and 26% other. However, forecasts predict this balance will change in 2024 due to there being more options that use Google’s wearable OS, like the OnePlus Watch 2 and Pixel Watch.
Going into 2024, the study expects the Wear OS market share outside of China to jump up to 27%. Meanwhile, Apple Watch shipments are expected to fall from 53% down to 49%. The other category is also expected to slip 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. Over there, Huawei’s Harmony OS reigns supreme with it controlling 48% of the market in 2023 and an expectation of a 13% increase in 2024. For comparison, Apple logged in 28% of the market share, while other OS’s grabbed 24% in 2023. Those numbers are expected to decline to 25% and 14%, respectively, in 2024.
Google has confirmed that it will talk about the next iteration of Wear OS at Google I/O 2024 in May. The company said it would discuss “how to design and build for the increasing range of device sizes.” This statement would appear to align with reports that Google could be working on two different sizes for the Pixel Watch 3.