Counterpoint: High-end smartwatch market to grow 15% in 2024

The global smartwatch market has been growing rapidly, mainly due to the explosive growth of basic smartwatches priced mostly below $100, running proprietary or real-time operating systems (RTOS), with basic functions and applications. On the other hand, high-end smartwatches (smartwatches equipped with high-level operating systems or HLOS) have been growing steadily, driven by Apple and Samsung.

By region, brand, and operating system, the global HLOS smartwatch market is expected to grow 15% in 2024 after flat growth in 2023. This growth will mainly come from non-Apple smartphone users who either use smartwatches based on Google Wear OS outside of China or Huawei Hongmeng-based smartwatches in China.

In terms of smartwatch chipsets, Apple and Samsung currently account for 2/3 of the high-end smartwatch market. Hengxuan and Qualcomm are expected to achieve double-digit growth in 2024. Qualcomm's market will be driven by more releases of its W5+ Gen 1 and W5100 processors, while Hengxuan's growth will be mainly driven by the adoption of Huawei and Xiaomi smartwatches.

In terms of new and future products, the new trend of dual chipset and dual OS strategy – that is, combining a high-end processor with a low-power co-processor and a hybrid version of Wear OS – allows for smooth integration and switching between RTOS and HLOS to improve power and performance based on user applications. Companies like Ambiq Micro, BES Tech, and Goodix will benefit from this trend and expand their share of the high-end smartwatch market. Therefore, there are more opportunities for collaboration in the market for hardware vendors with software platforms such as Wear OS to expand the capabilities of devices. Companies such as MicroEJ will also play a key role in abstracting the complexity of dual OS applications.