Samsung's 2022 smartwatch shipments are up 46%, but Apple is still on top

Meanwhile, Fitbit's market share is collapsing

Market research from Counterpoint has updated its smartwatch tracker, showing a respectable 13% improvement for the entire market in Q1 2022. Samsung saw a big increase in the first quarter, getting it a strong second-place position behind Apple. Xiaomi is also up this year, but no one is anywhere close to challenging Apple, least of all Google's Fitbit subsidiary.

Samsung's 46% year-over-year growth boosted its share from 7.8% to 10.1%. Counterpoint cites strong sales of the Galaxy Watch4 as the main driver here, and that's no surprise—the Watch4 is clearly the best Android smartwatch you can buy. Ditching Tizen is turning out to be a pretty good call. However, Apple is also up modestly from 35.9% to 36.1%, making its lead even more insurmountable. The report lists the top eight smartwatch makers, and numbers two through seven combined only barely surpassed Apple's share of the market.

Samsung is running ahead of Huawei, which has been seeing its sales slump year after year without access to Google services (it currently sits at 7.2%). Fellow Chinese firm Xiaomi, however, is up 69% YOY. Another gain like that, and it could pass Huawei. Things are not so rosy for Fitbit, which is still adjusting to being part of Google. It hasn't released any new smartwatches lately, and Wear OS integration has been stalled. As a result, Fitbit's market share has cratered from 4.1% to just 2.7%.

Counterpoint expects smartwatch sales to continue ramping up in the next few quarters, continuing a rebound from the pandemic lows of 2020. It expects Apple to capture the lion's share of sales increases, which might not leave much room for Google when it launches the Pixel Watch later this year.