Google's Pixel Watch has left Samsung in the dust - but Fitbit is flopping

Google's Pixel Watch isn't just one of the best smartwatches. It's one of the best-selling too. According to a new report by industry analysts Canalys, Google's watch sits at number 2 globally in the "wearable band" category – in other words, smartwatches. 

Only Apple is doing more numbers, and Google is comfortably ahead of Samsung: while it's some way behind Apple's 27.5% market share, its 8% is more than Samsung. Samsung only has 5.9%.

That's the good news for Google. The bad is that a lot of its market share is looking rather flakey, because the Google-owned Fitbit isn't doing so well.

Fitbit doesn't look so fit 

According to the report, Pixel Watches account for 22% of Google's smartwatch shipments – a very respectable 880,000 Pixel Watches in a single financial quarter. But the rest of that market share is largely made of Fitbits, and they're not doing as well. Shipments of models such as the Fitbit Inspire, Fitbit Versa and Fitbit Sense were down 25% in the same quarter.

There is more good news for Google, however: its impressive global market share was based on smartwatch sales in just nine countries, whereas Samsung sells the Galaxy Watch in over 30 and Apple sells the Apple Watch in more than 60 different countries. 

That means Google has done even better than the figures suggest, and it means that there are lots of places where Google doesn't yet sell smartwatches that it might want to target. And I suspect it will. Google's renewed faith in and focus on its own hardware is very impressive, and if it's already outselling Samsung who knows what numbers it might do if Google starts selling in more territories.