Question: if you had to guess who sold the most smartwatches on Earth last quarter, which company comes to mind? If you said Apple, you’d be wrong.
According to new research from Counterpoint Research, Huawei is now the world’s top smartwatch seller. Huawei captured 22 percent of global smartwatch shipments in the second quarter of 2026. That edged out Apple’s 20.1 percent share.
How Huawei Pulled Ahead
Huawei’s win comes unsurprisingly almost entirely from one place: China. Roughly 80 percent of Huawei’s smartwatch shipments happened inside its home country. Strong demand for the Huawei Watch GT 7 helped, along with government subsidies that made buying local devices cheaper.
Huawei isn’t widely sold in the US. It’s been effectively locked out of American phone carriers and stores for years. That’s exactly why this result can feel surprising to a US audience that mostly associates Apple with wearables.
However, Apple didn’t have a bad quarter, either. Its shipments jumped 14 percent year over year, the fastest growth of any of the top five smartwatch makers. The Apple Watch Series 11 and Apple Watch SE 3 drove that surge. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite fast enough to catch up to Huawei’s overall volume.
That being said, it’s worth mentioning that not every research firm agrees on the exact numbers, either. A separate report from Omdia put Apple back on top for a different stretch of time. But then again, this isn’t a permanent ranking. Quarterly shipment reports like this one shift depending on new product launches. Huawei and Apple have swapped the top spot before.
Overall, the smartwatch market actually shrank slightly, down 4 percent compared to a year earlier. Buyers are holding onto older devices longer and losing interest in bare-bones models. So if you’re shopping for a smartwatch and assumed Apple was the runaway global leader, think again. The real answer right now, at least according to Counterpoint, is a company most Americans have never actually held in their hands, at least not for years.