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Canalys are another one of these data crunching companies who routinely provide us with interesting data analysis which shows how the current markets, trends and predictions are panning out. For instance, very recently, Canalys were the ones who highlighted that Samsung seemed to have been ousted by Micromax in India, in terms of units shipped. Samsung, of course, did contend these findings, adamantly stating that they are still the leaders. Either way though and regardless of who is leading the Indian market, the data highlights that Samsung seem to be losing their foothold in India.
Well, back in 2013 Canalys released a report predicting that somewhere in the region of 5 million smartwatches will be shipped in 2014. That was a big claim and one which if realized, would certainly have cemented smartwatch’s place as a mainstream product. Now of course, you won’t need a data company to tell you that in 2014 smartwatches were big business. We saw them launched (or at least announced) by virtually every big smartphone OEM and all the talk over the last few months have been around smartwatches. That said, a new report published today by Canalys (source link below) reveals the number of smartwatches sold in 2014, was lower than what we might have thought. At least in terms of Android Wear devices.
According to the new figures, 720,000 Android Wear devices shipped in 2014. This was out of the overall 4.6 million smart wearables that were sold. Of the main offerings, it will be little surprise to learn that the Moto 360 was the big seller and remained so throughout Q4. The report also highlights that LG’s G Watch R significantly performed better than the original G watch. These two indicate how dominantly rounder smartwatches seem to be preferred to non-round devices. If you are wondering how the mighty Samsung did, then the reports highlights that due to their influx of wearable devices (6 in 14 months), Samsung remained the leader in the ‘smart band’ market. That said, there was no notable mention in terms of its actual smartwatch offerings, as standalone products. Although Canalys VP Chris Jones did comment that Samsung will have to work hard to attract developers in the future while they shift their focus to Tizen based wearables.
Although the overall number of smartwatches seems low, it is worth remembering that Android Wear devices did not effectively hit the market until the summer and as such the 720,000 figure is much more akin to a six month time-frame, then the year as a whole. With more and more companies expected to launch Android Wear offerings in 2015, we might see that number significantly jump by this time next year.