A new study from Counterpoint Research shows Apple and its Apple Watch led the US smartwatch market in brand stickiness in 2022. The report points out that nearly 80% of smartwatch users who own an iPhone say they use an Apple Watch. For Google Pixel users, on the other hand, 71% of them own a Google Pixel Watch. For Samsung users, this number drops for 40% of Galaxy Watch owners.
Counterpoint says this helps explains how Apple managed to achieve a 56% share of the US market last year. According to Counterpoint’s Smartwatch Tracker and US Sell-Through by Channel Tracker, Apple sold about one Apple Watch for every three iPhones in Q4 2022. Samsung sold only one Galaxy Watch for every ten Galaxy smartphones in the US.
“Our consumer research survey supports a general premise of ours – consumers generally purchase their devices as part of a broader ecosystem of devices and operating systems. Apple and iOS dominate the US smartphone market, and iPhone users are more likely to adopt other Apple products due to their superior interoperability,” said research analyst Matthew Orf.
The survey also indicates that over 98% of smartwatch users were either “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with their devices. In addition, health and fitness tracking was reported as the most used feature among respondents, followed by notification checking.
Interestingly, this report shows how the smartwatch market still has the potential to grow. Despite Apple not being able to bring new features to the Apple Watch as it does for the iPhone, the company is still dealing with lots of first customers.
Counterpoint shows that 59% of respondents had purchased their first smartwatch in the past year, and only 14% had purchased their device more than two years ago. In addition, 77% of the respondents stated that Apple was the most preferred brand for their next smartwatch.
