Google’s Pixel Watch Sales Increase to No. 2 Wearables Market Worldwide – Ars Technica

Believe it or not, the Pixel Watch seems to be a huge hit! At least, that’s according to new numbers from canaliswhich Google ranked second in the worldwide wearable band market in Q4 2022. Canalys’ “Wearable Band” market category includes smartwatches, “Basic watches” and “Basic bands” from all major technology companies.

The report has Google at 8 percent market share for the fourth quarter of 2022, which is good enough to take a place behind the dominant Apple with 27.5 percent of shipments. Google is fourth this time last year, and Canalys credits “16% smartwatch growth with the release of the Pixel Watch” as the reason why Google climbed to number two.

You might say, “Isn’t the Pixel Watch Google’s first smartwatch, so the growth from 0 units?” But no, Google also owns Fitbit, which means a bunch of product lines like the FitBit Sense, Versa, and Inspire are being lumped into the “Google” bucket. Canalys says Google shipped 880,000 Pixel watches during the fourth quarter, so the watch makes up 22% of Google’s 4 million wearable shipments — and the rest is still Fitbit.

Incidentally, Fitbit sales under Google are a disaster. Even with smartwatches growing 16 percent from the Pixel Watch, shipments of Google’s wearables are actually down 25 percent year-over-year, thanks to what the report calls “declining Fitbit shipments.” So far, Google’s only plans for Fitbit are to destroy the company. Google is absorbing Fitbit accounts sometime this year and has already announced the closure lovable fitness Gamification features – “Challenges” and “Adventures” – later this month. like that stripped Fitbit smartwatches supported the Google Assistant when it updated the lineup last August. with existing clients angry Because of the loss of features, it’s not clear why anyone would take a chance on Fitbit’s future.

Fortunately for Google, the rest of the wearables market fell by more than Google Fitbit’s losses. Last year’s number two player, Xiaomi, saw sales drop by 46 percent. Huawei fell 42 percent. Samsung, in fifth place, is down 35 percent. Even Apple’s sales fell 17 percent, slightly outpacing the overall market decline of 18 percent. Much of the drop in sales was attributed to the death of basic fitness trackers, which saw its ninth consecutive quarterly decline, down 43 percent year-over-year.

Seeing Google anywhere on the global market share chart is surprising, given that the company has such a small hardware operation when it comes to worldwide distribution. Pixel Watch only sold in nine countrieswhile the Apple Watch is available in More than 60 countries Galaxy watches in At least 31 countries (I could not find an exact number). Google’s small distribution network makes it difficult to make an impact in any of its market share schemes.

Distribution issues aside, Google has plenty of room for improvement over the supposed second-generation Pixel Watch. The Pixel Watch is quite expensive compared to the competition. Comprehensive first party watch band selection Still Not present, though metal bands will be an option sometime this year. Google has also made buying the Pixel Watch an expensive hassle, since it’s the only major watch seller that doesn’t let you choose a watch strap at checkout, forcing everyone to pay extra for the default rubber watch strap. These are all fixable generation 1 problems that give us something to look forward to.