When it comes to smartwatches and wearable technology there are a handful of companies that have been pushing the envelope for some time now. One of those is Samsung, who introduced the original Galaxy Gear some years ago now, and then some time later they introduced the excellent Gear Fit. Since then however, there was a calm where Samsung wearables are concerned, leaving Apple and others to release their new smartwatches like the Apple Watch, the Moto 360 and the Huawei Watch. It would appear that this has help Apple take the lead where smartwatches are concerned.
According to Strategy Analytics, Apple had shipped around 4.5 Million Apple Watches in a period of July-September 2015. During the same period, Samsung only managed to ship 600,000 smartwatches, which is presumably down to the fact that the Gear S2 was only just launched towards the end of September. This meant that the only smartwatches Samsung had on offer were the prohibitively expensive original Gear S and the older Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo. Compared to the Apple Watch, these older devices just don’t have the sort of features that consumers were looking for. Having said that, Samsung is still in second place when it comes to wearable technology, including Smartwatches.
The Gear S2 is likely to help Samsung regain some ground in the wearable market. With a fresh, round design and the ability to work on devices that aren’t produced by Samsung, the Gear S2 is a much more appealing smartwatch. Not to mention, their new UI, based on top of Samsung’s own Tizen, is one of the slickest-looking interfaces we’ve seen on a smartwatch. As usual though, the Gear S2 is not a particularly cheap device, then again neither is the Apple Watch. After the holiday season, it’ll be interesting to see how many Gear S2 units Samsung have sold, compared to the Apple Watch. Android Wear isn’t faring much better of course, with the likes of Sony, LG, Motorola and ASUS splitting the remaining 16% or so of the market between them.