The Apple Watch SE 3 is apparently one of the world's best-selling smartwatches. | Image by PhoneArena
Death, taxes, and Apple's supremacy in the global smartwatch landscape. Those might be the only certainties in life, but of course, the details matter too. Like how big of a lead the Cupertino-based tech giant holds over the world's number two smartwatch vendor.
That advantage was actually not very large in Q1 2025, but thanks to "meaningful health upgrades" and the budget-friendly Apple Watch SE 3, the gap to second place has extended to a comfortable 6 percent in the latest detailed Counterpoint Research report covering the first three months of this year.
Apple has nearly a quarter of the world's smartwatches
Specifically, 23 percent of all units sold between January and March 2026, up from "only" 20 percent during the same timeframe of last year. How impressive is that number? Well, if you compare it to the company's tablet market-dominating share of over 40 percent as of Q1 2026, it doesn't sound mind-blowing.
It's no wonder that the market is expanding when four of the top five vendors managed to boost their sales numbers in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. | Image by Counterpoint Research
Even in the global smartphone market, where the gold medal position was heavily contested by Samsung, Apple reportedly held a similar 21 or 22 percent share in the opening quarter of this year.
The difference, of course, is that Huawei is a significantly more distant silver medalist in the smartwatch market, and what makes Apple's supremacy in this industry... pretty much as impressive as its dominance over the smartphone landscape is the average selling price and resulting profits of its wearable devices, which are way higher than the same numbers generated by Huawei, Xiaomi, Imoo, and Samsung's watches.
The market as a whole is growing
That's notable for at least two big reasons, starting with the recent struggles of the smartphone and tablet markets. Said struggles haven't extended to smartwatches yet, and that might actually never happen as rising memory costs are expected to have a much more "limited impact" on intelligent timepieces.
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What makes Apple so hard to beat in the global smartwatch market?
After a 4 percent volume increase in Q1 2026 compared to the same period of last year, the wearable industry is forecasted for a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 3 percent through 2030, which isn't that much but it sure beats the massive declines tipped for the smartphone and tablet markets for the next couple of years or so.
Perhaps even more remarkably, average selling prices have surged at the same time as and by an even larger rate than smartwatch shipments around the world, with Apple of course being the main driver behind this growth indicator... too.
What's happening with Samsung?
If you want to understand how irrelevant Samsung has become in the global smartwatch market, you just have to look at the text accompanying the latest numbers put together by Counterpoint Research analysts, which includes no mention whatsoever of the company that used to be the world's second-largest vendor a few years back.
The Galaxy Watch 8 is probably a lot less popular than Samsung expected. | Image by PhoneArena
Samsung is now down to fifth place, and what's even worse is that the tech giant's share has slipped from 7 percent in Q1 2025 to only 5 percent now on the back of a huge 28 percent year-over-year decline in shipments.
It's hard to explain how something like that could happen mere months after the release of the very promising and reasonably well-reviewed Galaxy Watch 8 and Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, but I can now understand why the two One UI-powered devices are so frequently (and steeply) discounted by their manufacturer and major US retailers like Amazon.
Can anyone threaten Apple's supremacy?
Definitely not, at least not in the near future. It's not just Apple's sales supremacy that's incredibly hard to challenge, mind you, but its industry-leading growth as well.
The excellent Apple Watch Series 11 is likely to be followed by an even better Series 12 soon. | Image by PhoneArena
Believe it or not, the world's number one smartwatch vendor led the market with its 21 percent year-on-year boost in volume not only among the top five brands but the ten biggest vendors too, eclipsing Huawei's otherwise solid 12 percent progress of its own, not to mention Xiaomi and Imoo's far humbler 9 and 2 percent increases, respectively.
As little as one can know about the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 with several months (at the very least) ahead of their official announcements, I can safely assume the two upgraded smartwatches will prove successful enough to keep Huawei and Xiaomi at bay... as long as their prices don't explode.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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