After the cooperation of Google and Samsung, the market share of Wear OS increased

Google and Samsung have teamed up to relaunch the two companies' smartwatch strategies. Google has been at the bottom of the sales lists and seems to have lost interest in Wear OS for years. The last major release of Wear OS 2.0 was in 2018, which has been stagnant in the market for years. Major partners of Wear OS technology, such as Samsung, LG, Sony and Motorola, have left the platform since the early days, leaving only fashion brands like Fossil to build watches. Qualcomm was the main SoC provider, and while Apple has been changing the power you can get from a SoC for a smartwatch, Qualcomm has made virtually no effort to throttle the Wear OS market for years with fewer chips than its peer. > < p> Samsung left the Google smartwatch ecosystem After its initial release And it worked on its own with Tizen OS. Tizen is a Linux-based operating system created by Samsung and made from the ashes of other failed Linux operating systems, such as Maemo, MeeGo from Nokia, Intel Moblin, Samsung Bada, and LiMo. A security researcher described the operating system as "the worst code I've ever seen" and it doesn't support many third-party applications. Samsung is a strong point in hardware, and unlike Qualcomm, Samsung's Exynos division regularly produces SoCs for flagship smartwatches using modern transistor sizes and ARM-friendly CPU designs. Combining the two meant pairing the operating system, software, and Google apps ecosystem with Samsung hardware and marketing and distribution skills, a combination that led to the Android phone processor that exists today. Advertising market share has increased from 9.9% to 14.4% compared to last year, and this percentage has decreased. Thanks to the delayed release of Series 7 watches in the fourth quarter, the rate is 21.8%. It's a good bet that Apple's market share will increase with the release of new hardware, but for now, Wear OS is a long way from the top, a situation that would have been unimaginable just a year ago.

Wear OS may still have some growth in it. Wear OS 3 is currently available exclusively on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, and given that Google says its partners should have updates available in the second half of 2022, it appears Samsung has an exclusive one-year contract for the new operating systems. Qualcomm is planning a "next generation" of "fundamental redesign" of its smartwatch chips in 2022, so we'll likely see some non-Samsung OEMs using the modern and decent design of their Wear OS 3 smartwatches.

Looking at the smartphone market, another reason Android devices typically sell more than Apple is the lower price, and Wear OS 3 hasn't taken advantage of this yet. “A third of smartwatches sold in the third quarter of 2021 cost less than $100,” says Counterpoint, and the research firm predicts Samsung will capture the market in the next few years in a bid to become the No. 1 manufacturer. Galaxy Watch 4 prices start at $249.99.

Google should also work with Fitbit, which currently holds 4.4% of the smartwatch market. Fitbit has stated that it eventually plans to design Wear OS watches as well.