With the coronavirus pandemic no longer wreaking havoc on the tech industry and chip shortages causing most manufacturers fewer and fewer issues, it's certainly disappointing to see both smartphone and tablet sales hurting on a global scale.
But the same cannot be said about the smartwatch market, which is continuing to expand at a relatively healthy pace, especially if you consider the above, as well as "macro uncertainties such as inflation and geopolitical conflicts" like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Perhaps more intriguingly, this latest boost in global sales is primarily owed to one region and two brands... that are not Apple and Samsung. We're talking instead about Fire-Boltt and Noise, which are apparently huge in India, driving an incredible local surge in shipments of more than 300 percent from the April - June 2021 timeframe.
That allowed the country to become the world's second-largest smartwatch market, narrowly behind North America and even more narrowly ahead of China, where Huawei unsurprisingly reigns supreme while most other vendors remain incapable of making a significant global impact.
Of course, Apple is still number one in terms of global impact, but while the unrivaled heavyweight champion of the smartwatch world only saw its sales figures jump 8 percent year-on-year, silver medalist Samsung reported 40 percent growth thanks to the steady popularity of the Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic.
Even though the Galaxy Watch 5 duo is now already out while the Apple Watch Series 8, Pro, and SE 2 are not, it seems that the latter product lineup impacted the appeal of the Apple Watch Series 7 and first-gen SE by a much higher degree than the Galaxy Watch 4 family was affected by its sequel.
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This is actually the second consecutive quarter where Samsung is outpacing Apple... by a lot, but the gap between the two remains large enough for the Cupertino-based tech giant to feel little to no pressure as far as its supremacy is concerned.
We're talking a distance of 20.1 percent in the two's market share numbers, down from 26 percent the previous quarter and 23.2 percent back in Q2 2021. That's certainly a somewhat worrying trend for Apple, but the largely unchanged Series 8 and first-of-its-kind rugged Apple Watch Pro may well extend the gap to Samsung by quite a bit just in time for the holiday season.
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Adrian, a mobile technology enthusiast since the Nokia 3310 era, has been a dynamic presence in the tech journalism field, contributing to Android Authority, Digital Trends, and Pocketnow before joining PhoneArena in 2018. His expertise spans across various platforms, with a particular fondness for the diversity of the Android ecosystem. Despite the challenges of balancing full-time parenthood with his work, Adrian's passion for tech trends, running, and movies keeps him energized. His commitment to mid-range smartphones has led to an eclectic collection of devices, saved from personal bankruptcy by his preference for 'adequate' over 'overpriced'.
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