Pixel Watch gross sales energy Google to No. 2 in worldwide wearables marketshare

Imagine it or not, the Pixel Watch seems to be successful! At the very least, that is in accordance with new numbers from Canalys, which has Google capturing the No. 2 spot for worldwide wearable band marketshare in This autumn 2022. Canalys’ “wearable band” market class contains smartwatches, “fundamental watches,” and “fundamental bands” from all the large tech corporations.

The report has Google at 8 % marketshare for This autumn 2022, which is nice sufficient to fit in proper behind Apple’s dominant 27.5 % of shipments. Google was in fourth place this time final yr, and Canalys credit the “16% smartwatch progress with the discharge of its Pixel Watch” as the explanation for Google’s rise to No. 2.

You would possibly say, “Is not the Pixel Watch Google’s first smartwatch, and subsequently the expansion is from 0 models?” however no, Google additionally owns Fitbit, which suggests a bunch of product traces just like the FitBit Sense, Versa, and Encourage are getting lumped into the “Google” bucket. Canalys says Google shipped 880,000 Pixel Watches throughout This autumn, so the watch makes up 22 % of Google’s 4 million wearables shipments—the remainder remains to be Fitbit.

Fitbit gross sales beneath Google are a catastrophe, by the best way. Even with that 16 % smartwatch progress from the Pixel Watch, Google’s total wearables shipments are literally down 25 % yr over yr, because of what the report calls “waning Fitbit shipments.” To this point, Google’s solely plans for Fitbit are to intestine the corporate. Google is assimilating Fitbit accounts someday this yr and has already asserting a shutdown of beloved health gamification options—”Challenges” and “Adventures”—later this month. It additionally stripped Fitbit smartwatches of Google Assistant help when it up to date the lineup final August. With current prospects outraged over the lack of options, it is not clear why anybody would gamble on Fitbit’s future.

Fortunately for Google, all the remainder of the wearables market is down by far more than Google’s Fitbit losses. Final yr’s No. 2 participant, Xiaomi, had gross sales plummet 46 %. Huawei is down 42 %. Samsung, in fifth place, is down 35 %. Even Apple gross sales are down 17 %, barely beating the general 18 % market decline. A number of the gross sales decline is defined by the demise of fundamental health trackers, that are seeing their ninth consecutive quarterly decline, down 43 % yr over yr.

Seeing Google place wherever on a worldwide marketshare chart is a shock, because the firm has such a small {hardware} operation on the subject of worldwide distribution. The Pixel Watch is simply offered in 9 international locations, whereas the Apple Watch is on the market in over 60 international locations and Galaxy Watches in not less than 31 international locations (I could not discover an actual quantity). Google’s tiny distribution community makes it laborious to place a dent in any of the marketshare charts.

Apart from distribution issues, Google has numerous room for enchancment on a presumed second-generation Pixel Watch. The Pixel Watch is simply too costly in comparison with the competitors. A complete first-party watch band choice nonetheless does not exist, though someday this yr metallic bands will probably be an choice. Google additionally made shopping for a Pixel Watch an costly trouble, because it’s the one main watch vendor that does not allow you to choose a watch band at checkout, forcing everybody to pay further for the default rubber watch band. These are all fixable first-generation issues that give us one thing to sit up for.