A new market report reveals that the global smartwatch market has returned to growth, with major brands gaining momentum. Samsung took a different path in Q1 2026, with smartwatch shipments facing a steep decline.

According to Counterpoint Research, the global smartwatch shipments grew 4% YoY in Q1 2026. Analysts believe Apple was the key driver given its newest Watch portfolio, along with growing demand for premium devices.

Samsung was the only smartwatch brand that flagged a massive downturn in its shipments in Q1 2026. The company’s market share declined from 7 percent in Q1 2025 to 5 percent in the first quarter of the year.

The shipment data reveals that Galaxy Watch shipments declined 28 percent YoY. It signals that the company’s wearable strategy requires revisions. A new set of watches is coming next month, and market share is expected to rise.

Apple led the worldwide smartwatch market with 23 percent market share. The US tech giant flagged a steep growth of 21 percent year-on-year. The momentum will continue as Q3 is set to welcome the next-gen wearables.

Huawei also grew 12 percent, with the company’s market share jumping from 16 percent in Q1 2025 to 17 percent in Q1 2026. The Chinese brand ranked second, thanks to aggressive marketing and push from key markets.

The growth of the Chinese market, led by Huawei’s ecosystem push and government subsidies, encouraged consumer upgrades and strengthened overall demand.

Xiaomi maintained its third spot and 10 percent market share in Q1 2026’s smartwatch market. The company’s overall smartwatch shipments grew 9 percent year over year.

imoo was the fourth largest smartwatch vendor in the first quarter, retaining 7 percent market share with 2 percent YoY growth.

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Samsung smartwatches reportedly failing to open apps on Wear OS 6. A bug appears to be preventing certain apps from opening on the device. Users are frustrated as a key functionality of their wearable has stopped.

Users of Samsung smartwatches have been posting about a frustrating issue where apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, and WhatsApp simply refuse to open.

You tap the icon, the splash screen flashes for a second, and then you’re dumped right back into the app drawer. Similar reports are posted as complaints across various social media platforms, including Reddit.

One Galaxy Watch 8 Classic owner brought it to Reddit, and the replies confirmed this isn’t an isolated incident. Meanwhile, someone in that Reddit thread (via AndroidAuthority) dug into the cause, and it’s a Wear OS 6 kernel problem.

A zombie process, meaning a process that’s technically finished but still sitting in the system’s memory, creates a deadlock when the app tries to close. When you try to relaunch the app, the OS spots that old process, can’t kill it, and aborts the whole startup.

The fix is the May 2026 security patch. A Galaxy Watch 7 owner installed it and reports the bug hasn’t resurfaced since. Although the May patch’s rollout has begun, it’s still not widely available on Galaxy Watch models globally.

A kernel-level bug is making apps unusable on Galaxy Watches; the only potential fix requires a security update that not everyone may have received yet.

If your Galaxy Watch has been eating app launches lately, check your software update settings immediately.

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At the 2026 National Congress of Cardiology in Rosario, a team of Argentine physicians presented their findings. They tested the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 against 12-lead ECG equipment across 507 electrocardiographic tracings in 225 patients. The watch performed with diagnostic equivalence to clinical-grade tools.

Dr. Claudio Gabriel Morós led the study alongside Dr. Choe Hyon Ju, Dr. Liliana Nicolosi, and their team. The audience was 100 physicians, and the conditions were not minor, which included:

• Atrial fibrillation
• Premature ventricular contractions
• Post-surgical patients, including Tetralogy of Fallot cases
• People with pacemakers
• Pediatric patients

They built something called the ECG Calculator Watch, a digital tool using vector math to calculate the heart’s electrical axis from consecutive wrist and ankle measurements. The margin of error came out to 5.9 degrees.

Argentina matters here. Circulatory diseases account for 27.7% of all deaths in the country.

Samsung has been stacking institutional partnerships, too. Massachusetts General Hospital, Chung-Ang University, and Stanford Medicine each target a specific clinical gap, but this Argentine study is different.

It wasn’t a press release dressed as research, but presented to cardiologists, by cardiologists, with real patient numbers. If you are a Galaxy Watch 8 owner, you are holding a clinically proven heart care gadget on your wrist.

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 8 comes with advanced health tools.

Vascular Load tracking that measures arterial stress during sleep, an AGEs Index that estimates biological aging through tissue chemistry, passive AFib monitoring, and an Energy Score that cross-references overnight vessel stress with recovery data.

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