Huawei Beats Apple in Global Smartwatch Shares According to Latest Data

The Cupertino tech giant may now be the most valuable company in the world again after going ahead of NVIDIA, but in terms of global smartwatch shares, Apple lost to one of the most unexpected companies in the world, Huawei. It is known that China and Huawei have long struggled with the development of their technologies because of the massive US sanctions, but the company managed to overcome that, at least on smartwatches.

Despite Huawei overtaking Apple in the latest market data, there are still a lot of notable things that Cupertino shared with customers in the wearable space, including the latest health and hardware upgrades to the latest Apple Watch Series 10.

Huawei Beats Apple in Global Smartwatch Shares

The International Data Corporation (IDC) released their latest research which detailed the metrics on today's smartwatch industry, sharing that China now took the top spot as the largest wearable device market. As per the Worldwide Wearables Quarterly Tracker, China was able to ship 45.8 million units with a year-over-year increase of 20.1 percent, with the leading company being Huawei Technologies.

In terms of shipping volume, Huawei took the top spot in their global shipments where from Q1 to Q3 2024, the Chinese tech giant was able to ship a total of 23.6 million with a 16.9 percent market share. This saw a 44.3 percent year-over-year growth rate after only being able to ship 16.3 million during Q1-Q3 2023 and only seeing an 11.6 percent market share.

On the other hand, Apple was only able to ship 22.5 million units from Q1-Q3 2024 with a 16.2 percent market share from their 25.8 million units shipped and 18.4 percent market share in Q1-Q3 2023. Cupertino saw a 12.8 percent decline in its year-over-year growth rate for Q1-Q3 2024.

Apple is Losing Out to Other Smartwatch Brands

Apple's year-over-year growth rate saw a massive decline in the data from IDC, and it is not only Huawei that beat the company and was able to show growth in their numbers in the smartwatch market. Other Apple rivals including Xiaomi with a 26.5 percent YoY growth rate and Samsung with a 24.3 percent YoY growth rate were able to beat the company in this metric.

Apple and Huawei's Rivalry in the Tech Market

There is a massive rivalry between Apple and Huawei in the global tech market, particularly back when the Chinese technology brand saw a massive import ban from the United States which also led to the company being prohibited from using American tech. However, this was not a problem for Huawei especially this year as the company more than bounced back from its struggles and managed to outsell iPhones in China.

Despite the massive friction between both companies, Huawei Technologies' CEO Ren Zhengfei previously expressed that he is an "Apple fan" and that the American company has been a massive source of inspiration for the Chinese brand. Huawei, like China, has long called for a stop to "xenophobia" against their foreign brand, particularly as Chinese technologies have long faced scrutiny from the United States.

This year, the market saw Huawei significantly improving its numbers and slowly regaining its footing after falling flat for several years, and the company was said to already facing growth despite what it went through. Now, it managed to overtake Apple in the top spot for the global smartwatch market for several quarters, and it even beat Cupertino in its growth in this sector.