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Samsung is trying to see if lightening will strike twice – they single handily create a new market niche, called the Phablet, when they introduced the Galaxy Note in 2011 amongst the laughs of critics everywhere…and look who is laughing now with 15-20 million sold and on its third rendition. Now Samsung hopes to do the same thing with their newest wearable device, the Galaxy Gear smartwatch – yes, I know that the Galaxy Gear was not the first smartwatch on the market, but with Samsung’s branding power, it may be the first smartwatch to legitimize the category.
Samsung is realistically predicting a 20-30-percent of Galaxy Note 3 sales for its Galaxy gear, especially since the Gear currently only works on Samsung smartphones with Android 4.3, which means the Galaxy Note 3, and soon the Note 2 and Galaxy S3 & S4. There are a few people, called “early adopters,” that will buy the Galaxy Gear just because it is new and they like to have the device first. However, the market for the Galaxy Gear is so limited at this point, but Samsung did say that the Gear will eventually work with other phones, and that should open up the market for the Gear and we could really see sales take off, provided the reviews are favorable.
According to Juniper Research, only one million Galaxy Gears will be sold the first year and the market for the smartwatch will only grow from there. Android holds the largest worldwide market share of Operating Systems and Samsung is the largest manufacturer of Android smartphones. As Samsung upgrades the Note 2, S3, and S4 to Android 4.3 it opens up more potential Galaxy Gear customers and when Samsung makes the Gear available to other smartphones manufactured by other companies that will open up the sales door even more. Available applications will also drive the sales of the Gear as more and more developers jump on board.
It must also be said, that once Apple introduces its iWatch and adds “respectability” to the niche, sales of wearable smartwatches should really take off, helping other manufacturers, like Sony, LG, and Microsoft, who are planning smartwatch releases of their own. If the price stays around the $300 mark, it should be low enough to attract the number of customers that Samsung expects. What about you, are you planning to pick up a new Galaxy Gear.