Pixel Watch sales power Google to No. 2 in worldwide wearables marketshare

Believe it or not, the Pixel Watch appears to be a hit! At least, that's according to new numbers from Canalys, which has Google capturing the No. 2 spot for worldwide wearable band marketshare in Q4 2022. Canalys' "wearable band" market category includes smartwatches, "basic watches," and "basic bands" from all the big tech companies.

The report has Google at 8 percent marketshare for Q4 2022, which is good enough to slot in right behind Apple's dominant 27.5 percent of shipments. Google was in fourth place this time last year, and Canalys credits the "16% smartwatch growth with the release of its Pixel Watch" as the reason for Google's rise to No. 2.

You might say, "Isn't the Pixel Watch Google's first smartwatch, and therefore the growth is from 0 units?" but no, Google also owns Fitbit, which means a bunch of product lines like the FitBit Sense, Versa, and Inspire are getting lumped into the "Google" bucket. Canalys says Google shipped 880,000 Pixel Watches during Q4, so the watch makes up 22 percent of Google's 4 million wearables shipments—the rest is still Fitbit.