Figures from the Strategy Analytics Wearable Device Ecosystems service show that 1.9 million smartwatches were shipped last year, with 61.1% of them (1.2 million) running a version of the Android operating system.
Much of this Android growth was driven by sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear watch.
In fact, the only other notable operating system used for smartwatch devices was Firefox, with 0.5% of the global market.
According to Strategy Analytics, Android’s main smartwatch challenger is expected to come from Apple iOS, Microsoft and perhaps Tizen or the Linux-based ‘China Operating System’ (COS) rather than bespoke watch operating systems such as Pebble.
It also estimates that less than 1% of all smartphones shipped worldwide were bundled with smartwatches in 2013, which suggests there’s huge scope for smartwatch growth in the future.
[Strategy Analytics blog]