The smartwatch market shrank 4 percent last quarter and the expensive watches grew. Counterpoint Research put global shipments down 4 percent year over year in Q2 2026, the first decline in over a year, in figures reported by Android Headlines. Underneath that number Apple shipped 14 percent more watches than a year ago and Garmin shipped 11 percent more. Xiaomi shipped 38 percent fewer.
The cheap end is what disappeared.
Counterpoint gives two reasons and they pull in opposite directions. Buyers are walking past feature-light wearables with no real health sensors in them. That is the part of the market Xiaomi's budget lineup sits in, and its share fell from 9.5 percent to 6.1 percent in a year. At the other end, people who already own a good watch are holding onto it while they wait for non-invasive blood glucose monitoring, which reads blood sugar without a needle, and blood pressure tracking that runs on its own. Neither of those ships on a smartwatch you can buy today.
Huawei finished first with a record 22 percent share, up from 20.8 percent, on a 1 percent increase in shipments. About 80 percent of that volume is mainland China. The Watch GT 7 Pro sold well there, and local electronics subsidies helped. Preventive health tracking has real pull with buyers in that market. China took a record 38 percent of global shipments and grew 7 percent, and North America grew 8 percent.
Apple came second at 20.1 percent, up from 17.0, and grew faster than anyone else in the top five. The Series 11 and the SE 3, both of them launched in late 2025, made up more than 80 percent of Apple's shipments for the quarter. Imoo held third on 7.8 percent. Garmin finished fifth on 5.6 percent, carried by demand for high-end outdoor navigation watches.
Counterpoint's Mohit Agrawal and Anshika Jain expect full-year 2026 shipments to come in flat at around 1 percent growth, then 3 percent a year through 2030, once on-device AI and better medical sensors give people a reason to replace what they already have. Apple announces the Series 12 and the Ultra 4 tomorrow, on a quarter that year-old hardware won.