Samsung captures 70 per cent of emerging smart-watch market

While Samsung Electronics was not the first to market with its own smartwatch, it managed to capture 70 per cent of the smart-watch market in the first quarter of this year, according to Strategy Analytics. While the market of such devices is on an early stage of development, it is growing very rapidly.

Global smartwatch shipments grew a healthy +250 per cent year-over-year in Q1 2014. The market was driven heavily by Samsung and its Galaxy Gear model, which is outperforming all major rivals like Motorola and Pebble.

Strategy Analytics claims (according to Cnet News) that Samsung shipped 500 thousand of Galaxy Gear smart-watches in Q1 2014 and captured around 70 per cent of the market. The shipments number does not include sales of the recently announces Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit models, which are generally considered more competitive than their predecessor.

It is interesting to note that the smart-watches from Samsung are based either on a proprietary operating system or open-source Tizen OS that is not used anywhere else, which means that customers do not expect to install a lot of additional software on those devices and are satisfied with the out-of-the-box functionality.

Later in the year it is expected that various companies will release their new breed of smart-watches based on Android Wear operating system, which will have a huge influence on the market.

Samsung did not comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: It is pretty obvious that Samsung’s smartwatch dominance may slip as more companies enter the market of smart-watches. But at present it looks like Samsung has captured an early lead, which it will try to hold for as long as possible.

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