Huawei Claims Smartwatch Dominance: 5 Key Insights from Their Massive Market Share Lead

Huawei has delivered a striking statistic that underscores its strength in wearables: smartwatches now hold a significantly larger market share than smartphones in many key regions and categories. This revelation, shared during recent product briefings and executive comments in late 2025, highlights how Huawei has transformed from a phone-centric brand into a dominant force in the global smartwatch market.

While smartphones continue to face restrictions in several markets, the company’s wearables business—led by the Watch GT series, Watch Ultimate, Watch D2, and Watch Fit lines—has grown explosively. In several major markets (including China, parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia), Huawei smartwatches now command higher market share percentages than their smartphone counterparts, sometimes by a wide margin.

Here are 5 key insights behind Huawei’s bold claim and what it means for the wearable industry moving forward.

1. Explosive Growth in China & Emerging Markets

In its home market of China, Huawei smartwatches have consistently ranked #1 or #2 in market share for multiple quarters in 2025, frequently outperforming the company’s own smartphone share (which remains strong but constrained by competition and regulatory factors).

IDC and Canalys data show them capturing 25–35% of the Chinese smartwatch market in 2025, compared to roughly 15–20% smartphone share in the same period. Similar patterns appear in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Latin America, where Huawei wearables have become the go-to premium option.

This regional dominance has created a situation where Smartwatches outsell Phones in unit volume and market share percentage in several important territories.

2. Superior Ecosystem Stickiness and User Loyalty

Huawei’s HarmonyOS ecosystem creates extremely strong user retention in wearables. Once consumers buy a Huawei phone + watch combination, they tend to stay loyal longer than with other brands.

Key drivers:

• Deep HarmonyOS integration (Super Device, seamless device switching)
• Health & fitness features (TruSense, blood pressure monitoring on Watch D2)
• Long battery life (10–21 days typical)
• Affordable premium positioning (Watch GT series often priced below competitors)

This stickiness means that even when smartphone market share is pressured, the watch segment continues to grow rapidly because:

• Many users keep or upgrade the watch even if they switch phones
• Wearables have lower replacement cycles and higher satisfaction scores

Huawei executives have repeatedly pointed to this “ecosystem moat” as the main reason smartwatches now represent a larger slice of their market presence than phones in several regions.

3. Massive Shipment Volumes in the Wearables Category

Huawei has quietly become one of the top 3 global smartwatch vendors by shipment volume in 2025, often ranking #2 or #3 behind Apple and sometimes ahead of Samsung.

Counterpoint Research and Canalys both reported Huawei shipping more smartwatches than smartphones in several quarters of 2025 in certain markets, especially when excluding restricted regions.

Key numbers (approximate, based on 2025 reports):

• Huawei smartwatch shipments: 30–45 million units annually
• Huawei smartphone shipments (global): 35–40 million units (heavily concentrated in China)

Because smartwatches are lower-priced and higher-volume, they achieve larger relative market share in the categories where Huawei is active.

4. Health & Medical Features Driving Premium Demand

The Watch D2 (with cuffless blood pressure monitoring), Watch Ultimate series (dive computer, golf assistant), and GT series (advanced TruSense health tracking) have created strong differentiation.

These features resonate strongly in ageing populations and health-conscious markets:

• China (ageing society)
• Middle East (high diabetes prevalence)
• Europe (preventive healthcare focus)

This has allowed Huawei to charge premium prices and achieve higher market share in the high-end segment than in smartphones, where competition is fiercer.

In several markets, Huawei now holds larger share in the >$300 smartwatch segment than in the >$600 smartphone segment.

5. Strategic Focus: Wearables as the New Growth Engine

Huawei executives have openly stated that wearables are now the company’s primary growth driver in consumer electronics outside of China.

Reasons include:

• Less regulatory friction than smartphones
• Faster innovation cycles
• Stronger ecosystem lock-in
• Higher user satisfaction and loyalty

As a result, they have allocated significant R&D and marketing resources to wearables, producing consistent quarterly share gains while smartphone share fluctuates more due to external factors.

This strategic shift explains why smartwatches have overtaken phones in relative market share in many regions.

Bottom Line: Huawei’s Smartwatch Lead Is Real — and Strategic

Huawei’s statement isn’t marketing spin — in many markets and especially in the premium segment, smartwatches genuinely hold larger market share than smartphones in 2025.

This reflects both the company’s deliberate strategic focus on wearables and the fact that smartphones face more competition and regulatory headwinds.

For consumers: wearables now offer some of the most advanced health features and longest battery life on the market.

For investors: Wearables have become Huawei’s most reliable growth engine in consumer electronics.

For competitors: The pressure is on — especially in the health and battery life segments.

What do you think — are smartwatches now more important to the brand than phones? Or is this just a temporary shift? Drop your thoughts below!