The same device is the world leader in the smartwatch industry and also the leader in the wearable bracelet market

After six consecutive quarters of declining growth, the global smartwatch market has recovered, but only just. In the second quarter of 2024, smartwatch shipments increased 0.1% year-on-year. While most manufacturers continued to suffer from shipment declines, Garmin saw its shipments increase 16% year-on-year in the second quarter due to strong consumer demand and increased advertising spending.

The second-quarter increase, as small as it was (and make no mistake, it was a small increase), brought some confidence back to manufacturers ahead of the holiday shopping season and new product releases expected in the second half of the year. Cynthia Chen, head of research at Canalys, said her company expects double-digit growth in smartwatch shipments in the second half of the year thanks to new models from Samsung, Google and Apple, some of which have already hit the market.

“These ecosystem providers will introduce advanced health and fitness tracking features to counteract Garmin's continued success and spark a wave of device upgrades. To succeed in this competitive market, smartwatch vendors will need to deliver significant improvements in health monitoring and battery life compared to previous generations… Growth in both the smartwatch and basic watch categories can be sustained in the short term, but in the coming years, these segments could begin to cannibalize each other as they increasingly target similar features and markets. To prevent this, smartwatch vendors will need to introduce new differentiators or use cases, such as gesture control or GenAI integration, that leverage the superior processing power of smartwatches.” – Cynthia Chen, Head of Research at Canalys

Among smartwatch manufacturers, Apple had a leading 49% share of shipments in Q2 2024. This puts the tech giant well ahead of second-place Samsung and its 15% share of the global smartwatch pie. Garmin took third place with an 11% share of smartwatch shipments in Q2. Huawei followed in fourth place with a 7% share. And finally, in fifth place was Google with a 4% market share.

The market leaders for each of the three segments of the wearable bracelet industry. | Image credit: Canalys – The same device that leads the global smartwatch industry also leads the wearable bracelet market

The market leaders for each of the three segments of the wearable wristband industry. | Image credit: Canalys

But smartwatches are just one of three different segments that make up the wearable wristband industry. The other two parts of the equation are basic bands, led by Xiaomi, whose smart band is a top seller every year. Xiaomi's 40 percent share of the smart band market in the second quarter easily outpaced Huawei's 23 percent, Google's 10 percent, Samsung's 6 percent, and Honor's 2 percent.

The third part of the wearable bracelet industry is made up of basic watches. Huawei and Xiaomi were neck and neck in the second quarter as they accounted for 15% and 13% of basic watch shipments respectively in the second quarter. Noise and Fire Boltt were in third place with 11% market share each. In fifth place was boAt with 5%.

Apple is the world's leading manufacturer of wearables | Image credit: Canalys - The same device that leads the global smartwatch industry also leads the wearables market.

Apple is the world's leading manufacturer of wearable wristbands. | Image credit: Canalys

Looking at all three segments combined, Apple was the leader in the wearable bracelet market in the second quarter. The company shipped 7.7 million units in the second quarter of 2024, down 5% year-on-year. Apple led with a market share of 17.4%. Huawei was in second place with 6 million shipments, accounting for 13.5% of the wearable bracelet industry. The beleaguered Chinese company saw its wearable bracelet shipments increase 40% year-on-year.

Xiaomi lagged just behind Huawei after it shipped 5.9 million wearable wristbands in the second quarter, up 23% year-on-year. Xiaomi had a 13.3% market share in wearable wristbands in the second quarter. Samsung also saw its shipments increase by 23% year-on-year, with 2.8 million wearable wristbands shipped in the second quarter. The company's market share was 6.4% in the quarter. Noise ranked fifth among wearable wristband manufacturers, shipping 2.4 million wristbands, down 32% from the second quarter last year, leaving it with a 5.4% market share.

A total of 44.3 million wearable wristbands were shipped in the second quarter, representing a small increase of 0.2% over the same period last year.

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