You might think that with the coronavirus pandemic and lots of folks staying home to quarantine, smartwatch sales might've suffered. But a new report says that that's not the case.
Worldwide smartwatch shipments grew 12% in Q1 2020 compared to the same time last year, according to Canalys research. The total number of smartwatch shipments finished at 14.3 million units for the quarter.
Apple remained the smartwatch leader in the quarter, shipping 5.2 million units. Its market share actually dropped year-over-year, though, going from 46.7% in Q1 2019 to 36.3% in Q1 2020. It's said that the Apple Watch saw slower performance in Europe and North America as consumers focused more on AirPods.
Today's report also mentions that Apple's watchOS gained 4 million new active users in the quarter, bringing its total install base to 70 million.
In second place for smartwatch shipments in Q1 2020 was Huawei. Its shipments grew a whopping 113% year-over-year to finish at 2.1 million units, or 14.9% market share for the quarter. Canalys attributes that huge growth to the fact that Huawei included its smartwatch with purchases of its Huawei P40 flagship phone.
Samsung and Garmin saw some solid smartwatch market share growth in Q1 2020, too, growing 46% and 39% year-over-year and finishing with 1.8% and 1.1% of the smartwatch market. Fitbit wasn't so lucky, as its market share dropped 21% year-over-year and finished at 0.9% for the quarter.
Finally, today's report notes that smartwatch shipments in China grew a whopping 66%, with lots of LTE-enabled watches shipped as part of a move toward nationwide eSIM coverage.