Canalys released its report on the global wearables market for Q4 and full 2022. The figures revealed 50 million units shipped between October and December, which was a massive 18% drop – the biggest since the data has been collected and analyzed.
All five major companies — Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung and Google — saw a year-over-year drop in shipments during the holiday period, with only Cupertino seeing year-over-year growth for the entire calendar year.
Canalys cited the “challenging macroeconomic environment in Q4” as the main reason for the decline across the board. Apple remained the runaway leader and was the default choice for all iPhone users, while Google managed to stay in second place thanks to the Pixel Watch, despite Fitbit units falling 25%.
Canalys divides wearables into three categories – Basic band, basic watch and smartwatch. The differences between them become increasingly murky with each new device, and Canalys said smartwatches would grow by around 10%; however, the decline in baseband interest would put the overall wearables market at a modest 2% increase.
