The latest numbers from Staretgy Analytics point to Apple Watch capturing 51 percent of the global smartwatch market in Q4 2018.

As per the analytics firm, smartwatch shipments grew to a record 18.2 million units in Q4 2018, with the overall market registering a growth of 56 percent. For comparison, 11.6 million smartwatch units were shipped in Q4 2017.

Out of the 18.2 million units, Apple shipped 9.2 million units in Q4 2018 — that’s up 18 percent from the 7.8 million units it shipped in Q4 2017. For the entire calendar year of 2018, Apple is estimated to have shipped 22.5 million units of the Apple Watch, notably ahead of the 5.5 million and 5.3 million units shipped by Fitbit and Samsung.

Apple does not reveal the Apple Watch units it ships every quarter or year so this data from Strategy Analytics helps in showing just how big the Apple Watch in itself has become for the company.

Despite Apple’s impressive growth, it lost market share to Samsung and Fitbit. Samsung shipped about 2.4 million smartwatches in Q4 2018 and managed to capture 13 percent of the market share — up from 5 percent in Q4 2017. This can be attributed to the Galaxy Watch proving extremely popular in North America and Asia. One key reason behind the Galaxy Watch success in Asia is that Samsung was giving the smartwatch at a heavily discounted price to Galaxy Note 9 customers which helped in further bolstering its shipments.

Fitbit also did well and shipped 2.3 million units in Q4 2018 thanks to the strong performance of the Versa.

The overall smartwatch market grew from 29.3 million units in 2017 to 45 million units in 2018 representing a 54 percent growth.

With smartphone sales slowing down, many companies are looking at smartwatches and wearables to further grow their business. It looks like for Apple that investment is definitely paying off, while Fitbit and Samsung still have a long way to go despite a strong Q4 2018.

[Via Strategy Analytics]

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