The wearables market is having a moment, just not the kind Apple might have hoped for. While IDC data shows Apple secured a 17.9% market share in Q2 2024, making them a top-five player globally, the story under those numbers is messier. The global smartwatch market rebounded with 4% growth in Q2 2024 after six straight quarters of decline. Yet Apple’s sales velocity lagged competitors that rode the recovery more aggressively.
It looks like a paradox: gaining share, losing momentum. The worldwide wearables market reached 534.6 million units in 2024 with 5.4% year-over-year growth, but the forces behind that growth did not tilt in Apple’s favor.
Apple grew its slice while others grabbed the fresh demand. Translation, the market finally shook off its post-pandemic lull, excitement returned to smartwatches, and Apple was not the brand sparking that excitement. Ecosystem loyalty kept its base, competitors captured the upside.
What’s really happening in the smartwatch space?
Here is the twist. The smartwatch category actually declined 4.5% in 2024, which explains part of Apple’s challenge. Look closer and you see brands like Garmin, Huawei, and Google drove the market’s recovery through sharper positioning and timely product moves.
Smartwatches had been sliding for six straight quarters, a year and a half that felt like forever in tech. Analysts called it smartwatch fatigue, upgrades stalled as pandemic-era buyers kept wearing what they had.
What flipped the script? Huawei’s Harmony OS push and Garmin’s success in the fitness segment delivered targeted value. Garmin leaned into advanced GPS, multi-day battery life, and deep sports modes that serious athletes wanted. Huawei’s Harmony OS brought smoother performance and tighter app integration than many expected outside the Google orbit.
Meanwhile, in the US market, smartwatch sales contracted as owners kept pandemic purchases. That stung Apple, the US being its strongest base. If you bought an Apple Watch Series 6 or 7 at the height of COVID, odds are its health tracking and basic smarts still feel good enough.
One more tell, ASPs for smartwatches rose 5.7% in 2024. Winners were not discounting, they were selling clearer value at higher prices. The hitch, Apple’s premium stance did not come with upgrades compelling enough to spark big replacement waves.
Why competitors are pulling ahead
Rivals are not just keeping up, they are picking lanes. Google shifted focus to the Pixel Watch, leaving Fitbit’s older models without updates, while Fossil exited entirely. You would think consolidation would help Apple. Instead, others filled the open space faster.
Google’s consolidation shows the playbook. Drop the split attention, back one product, tighten the message. Pixel Watch now mixes Fitbit health chops with Google’s AI and deep Android ties, a combo that actually feels different.
The broader wearables story points in another direction too. Hearables represent over 60% of the wearables market and keep growing, pulled by emerging markets and refresh cycles elsewhere. Apple’s AirPods dominance proves it knows how to make wearables sing, which makes its smartwatch stall even more curious.
New form factors are gaining steam that Apple has not tapped. Smart rings and glasses are experiencing high double-digit growth, with Meta’s Ray-Ban partnership proving quite successful. And while Apple maintains strong market competitiveness with their single smartwatch product line, that narrow focus can miss fresh demand.
Take Meta’s Ray-Ban approach. One killer trick, seamless photo and video capture with voice commands. No bloated UI, no face-mounted phone clone. One use case, executed cleanly. That kind of clarity is what pulled the market out of its funk.
The path forward for Apple’s wearables strategy
Bottom line, Apple’s share gains amid sales pressure look more like consolidation than expansion. The smartwatch market is forecast to rebound with 4.8% growth in 2025, so the window is open for Apple to lean into its ecosystem edge.
The job now is closing the innovation gap that let rivals grab the Q2 spotlight. Advanced sensing technologies and AI applications are next, along with richer health features like blood pressure tracking. Apple has the integration and health platform to win here, if it moves with urgency.
PRO TIP: Apple’s superpower is not just integrations, it is making complex tech feel effortless. The question is timing. Can it bring breakthrough health features like continuous glucose monitoring or sharper sleep analysis to market before competitors stitch together their own ecosystems?
In the meantime, incremental matters. Give loyal owners reasons to upgrade while the big bets bake. Better battery life, faster charging, smarter workout detection, tighter Siri. Garmin wins by shipping specific features its core users care about. Apple can play that game too.
Looking ahead, worldwide wearable shipments are forecast to grow 6.1% in 2024 to 537.9 million units. Apple’s challenge is not only keeping 17.9% share, it is matching the market’s speed. The companies that led Q2’s recovery understood something simple, in a rebound, the pace of meaningful innovation beats perfecting yesterday’s features.
The smartwatch race now feels like early smartphones. Success comes from reading needs fast and shipping progress that people can feel, not just polish. Apple wrote that playbook once. The trick is remembering it while the competition sets the tempo.
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