Samsung wages war against Apple in smartwatch market

By Baek Byung-yeul

Samsung Electronics will begin selling its Galaxy Watch here today, vowing to oust market leader Apple Watch.

The Korean firms first revealed its latest smartwatch product early this month while unveiling the Galaxy Note 9 smartphone.

To unify its smart devices under the Galaxy brand, Samsung abandoned its Galaxy Gear brand and renamed it the Galaxy Watch.

As the importance of “all things connected” is quickly being raised, the smartwatch market is a not-to-be-missed one for Samsung.

According to the data compiled by market researcher IDC, the sales growth of wearable devices has been staying on an upward trend as the market will grow 8.2 percent this year from a year earlier. The total shipments of the wearable devices are expected to be 124.9 million this year.

The researcher also predicted smartwatches will be increasingly important in the wearable device market as they will account for 44.6 percent of all wearable devices by 2022.

Samsung said the Galaxy Watch will have a longer battery life of three to four days without recharging and help its users manage their everyday health.

The Galaxy Watch will come in two versions -- one is 46 millimeters in diameter with a battery life of up to 168 hours and the other is 42 millimeters in diameter and has up to 120 hours of battery life.

The LTE network supported version will be sold at 399,300 won ($358) for the 46-milimeter one and 379,500 won for the 42-milimiter one. For the only Bluetooth supported version, the 46-millimeter one will come with a price tag of 359,700 won while the 42-milimeter one will be 339,900 won.

With the LTE network-supported version, users can make and receive phone calls via the Galaxy Watch without their smartphone.

Samsung showed confidence that the exterior design of the smartwatch will attract trendy consumers. Stating that the Galaxy Watch is targeting the digital native generation, Samsung said the smartwatch has “an outer design that covers a wide range of styles ranging from classical to casual moods.”

While Samsung expects more people to wear its smartwatch, it remains to be seen whether it can actually compete with Apple Watch products that have displayed dominance in the smartwatch market.

Samsung is the world's largest smartphone maker, but the company is the No. 3 player in the smartwatch market.

In the April-June period of this year, Samsung shipped 900,000 smartwatches to take a market share of 10.5 percent in the world, according to the data from Strategy Analytics.

While Apple displayed its dominance with a share of 44.4 percent, Fitbit rose to second with 15.2 percent share.

To solidify its lead, Apple is set to unveil the fourth generation of Apple Watch before the end of this year. According to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new Apple Watch will come with larger display and longer battery life.

Given that the Apple Watch Series 3 was announced on Sept. 12, last year and went on sale 10 days later, industry watchers predict the fourth generation Apple Watch is expected to hit the market next month.