Apple delivered half of the world’s smartwatches in 2018, but lost 10% market share

The advancements in technology have allowed smartwatches to have more powerful chips, bigger displays and better battery life. Naturally, all of those improvements made them more desirable for consumers and in 2018 the smartwatch market grew significantly.

We have a good idea about what transpired on the smartwatch market last year thanks to Strategy Analytics and their latest report. The report contains some expected results but also a couple of surprises, so let’s take a closer look.

Starting with units sold first, we can see that Apple sold 22.5 million units of its Apple Watch (that includes older generations, of course), which is exactly half of what all smartwatch makers shipped in 2018. That’s quite expected, however, the company that comes second might be a bit of a shock. If you think Samsung is the second-largest smartwatch maker, you’re wrong! It’s actually Fitbit!

While Fitbit shipped far fewer devices than Apple, “just” 5.5 million, those were enough to put it on the second spot, edging out Samsung with around 200,000 units. The impressive result comes mainly from the Fitbit Versa’s popularity in the States. The affordable smartwatch won people over with its awesome price-to-features ratio and cool software (check our review of the Fitbit Versa).