There are varying
factors as of why I believe manufacturers aren’t ready to fully support
Android Wear. I will list some of them
First of all the wearables market is still in its infancy with mass adoption yet to take place. For example Android Wear just shipped around 0.7 million units or so ever since its launch. This might have reduced the confidence of manufacturers on Android Wear to some extent and they have started looking for their own alternatives. I come to this conclusion because at the start both Samsung(Gear Live) and LG and even Asus made Android Wear watches. HTC was also rumored to bring about an Android Wear device. But as time has passed Samsung continued with Tizen(Their main focus ever since the start). Also at CES 2015 journalists spotted an LG Watch running WebOS and even Asus has said that it will produce a cheaper smartwatch that doesn’t run on Android Wear.
The last and much more stronger theory I believe is that money has its part to play. All manufacturers have seen what happened to them in the smartphone market because of adopting Android and they don’t want that to happen again with the wearable market.If you have a look at the latest value share division amongst manufacturers,You will see that at Q4 of 2014 Apple took in a whopping 93% of the smartphone profits generated. The remaining 7% was what went inside the pockets of all the Android manufacturers like Samsung,LG etc. The situation was never like this always. For example during the Q4 of 2012 Apple only had 55% of smartphone market profits or so and the remaining 45% was shared by Android and others like BlackBerry etc. But now 93% is eaten up by Apple. The reason for this has been commoditization of the Android smartphone market. Earlier when Android was new. Manufacturers like HTC and Samsung pourned in tons of money in terms of R&D and brought new devices to the market and gave competition to Apple while at the same time creating a new market for themselves. For example Samsung poured a ton of money on R&D and as a result Samsung Galaxy Note series was born. The big batteries,huge screen and the use of stylus gave rise to a new class of device in itself called phablets. When the Android market was immature and facing huge growth,Manufacturers like Samsung and HTC used to pour tons of money on R&D and were able to create enhancements or create entirely new devices that has a clear distinguishing feature compared to what the lower end competition provided and hence companies like Samsung and HTC were always able to justify the premium price of their products. However that golden phase lasted only for few years.
From 2014 onwards the top tier manufacturers like Samsung were no longer to meaningfully differentiate their smartphones from the low cost Chinese and regional alternatives(Chinese rebranders of various countires) and this made people doubt the premium pricing Samsung and others had. With no meaningful differentation people started prefering low cost smartphones more than the ones Samsung and HTC provided. This lead to a decline in sales and value market share. So basically companies like Samsung and HTC who invested a lot in R&D and catapulted Android are now facing almost 0 returns from the Android segment. That’s because Chinese manufacturers effectively produced devices similar to that of Samsung and HTC and sold them at much lower margins. This forced Samsung and others to reduce their prices or lose market share.
The very Android Samsung and others invested billions of $ at(and reaped too) became their weaknesss. From 2014 onwards companies like Xiaomi and other local rebranders sucked the milk out of the cash cow Android once was for Samsung and others. Samsung did release gadgets like Galaxy Note Edge but they failed to garner much attention. Customers were not ready to pay Samsung 100s of $ extra just for an extra screen on the side. Commoditization of the smartphone market happened and companies like Xiaomi literally made buisness difficult for Samsung and other Android makers.
While all this was happening Apple remained immune to the market and continued to grow. Their market share decreased but shipments volume/profits kept increasing and value market share kept increasing tremendously on the expense of Android. The reason why Apple was immune was because it had its own software. Not only did Apple manage to sell high margin iPhones loaded with ios. They also managed to make billions through ios in the form of in app payments and other stuffs. Having total control over hardware and software allowed Apple to continue differentiate itself from the crowd. They were able to make custom SoCs without having to worry about core count and were able to properly optimize it for ios. Also having full control over hardware and softward allowed Apple to integrate sruffs like Touch ID and make full use of them through services like Apple Pay. Sevices like Apple Pay make the iPhone more of a part of the daily lives. So even if Apple stops innovating in terms of hardware or software,utilities like Apple Pay would allow Apple to have a firm control over the user and have them locked to the iPhone. Having total control over both software and hardware has helped Apple. The company has raked in a whopping 18 billion $ last quarter which pretty much shows that Apple’s buisness model is quiet successful while Android vendors keep competing amongst themselves and at the end no one gets anything.
Android manufacturers don’t want this to happen with Android Wear too. They don’t want to spend billions of $ creating the proper Android Wear device only to know that after few years when they are out of ideas(i.e when commoditization starts taking place),some company like Xiaomi comes up and undercuts their business significantly. They have seen this happening to them in the smartphone market and don’t want to repeat the same with Android Wear. Rather they want to be like Apple. Have total control over hardware and software so that they can control their market and innovation which they have in mind can be properly executed without having to depend on a third party(like Google) for example. This is the main reason why manufacturers don’t want to support Android Wear.
First of all the wearables market is still in its infancy with mass adoption yet to take place. For example Android Wear just shipped around 0.7 million units or so ever since its launch. This might have reduced the confidence of manufacturers on Android Wear to some extent and they have started looking for their own alternatives. I come to this conclusion because at the start both Samsung(Gear Live) and LG and even Asus made Android Wear watches. HTC was also rumored to bring about an Android Wear device. But as time has passed Samsung continued with Tizen(Their main focus ever since the start). Also at CES 2015 journalists spotted an LG Watch running WebOS and even Asus has said that it will produce a cheaper smartwatch that doesn’t run on Android Wear.
The last and much more stronger theory I believe is that money has its part to play. All manufacturers have seen what happened to them in the smartphone market because of adopting Android and they don’t want that to happen again with the wearable market.If you have a look at the latest value share division amongst manufacturers,You will see that at Q4 of 2014 Apple took in a whopping 93% of the smartphone profits generated. The remaining 7% was what went inside the pockets of all the Android manufacturers like Samsung,LG etc. The situation was never like this always. For example during the Q4 of 2012 Apple only had 55% of smartphone market profits or so and the remaining 45% was shared by Android and others like BlackBerry etc. But now 93% is eaten up by Apple. The reason for this has been commoditization of the Android smartphone market. Earlier when Android was new. Manufacturers like HTC and Samsung pourned in tons of money in terms of R&D and brought new devices to the market and gave competition to Apple while at the same time creating a new market for themselves. For example Samsung poured a ton of money on R&D and as a result Samsung Galaxy Note series was born. The big batteries,huge screen and the use of stylus gave rise to a new class of device in itself called phablets. When the Android market was immature and facing huge growth,Manufacturers like Samsung and HTC used to pour tons of money on R&D and were able to create enhancements or create entirely new devices that has a clear distinguishing feature compared to what the lower end competition provided and hence companies like Samsung and HTC were always able to justify the premium price of their products. However that golden phase lasted only for few years.
From 2014 onwards the top tier manufacturers like Samsung were no longer to meaningfully differentiate their smartphones from the low cost Chinese and regional alternatives(Chinese rebranders of various countires) and this made people doubt the premium pricing Samsung and others had. With no meaningful differentation people started prefering low cost smartphones more than the ones Samsung and HTC provided. This lead to a decline in sales and value market share. So basically companies like Samsung and HTC who invested a lot in R&D and catapulted Android are now facing almost 0 returns from the Android segment. That’s because Chinese manufacturers effectively produced devices similar to that of Samsung and HTC and sold them at much lower margins. This forced Samsung and others to reduce their prices or lose market share.
The very Android Samsung and others invested billions of $ at(and reaped too) became their weaknesss. From 2014 onwards companies like Xiaomi and other local rebranders sucked the milk out of the cash cow Android once was for Samsung and others. Samsung did release gadgets like Galaxy Note Edge but they failed to garner much attention. Customers were not ready to pay Samsung 100s of $ extra just for an extra screen on the side. Commoditization of the smartphone market happened and companies like Xiaomi literally made buisness difficult for Samsung and other Android makers.
While all this was happening Apple remained immune to the market and continued to grow. Their market share decreased but shipments volume/profits kept increasing and value market share kept increasing tremendously on the expense of Android. The reason why Apple was immune was because it had its own software. Not only did Apple manage to sell high margin iPhones loaded with ios. They also managed to make billions through ios in the form of in app payments and other stuffs. Having total control over hardware and software allowed Apple to continue differentiate itself from the crowd. They were able to make custom SoCs without having to worry about core count and were able to properly optimize it for ios. Also having full control over hardware and softward allowed Apple to integrate sruffs like Touch ID and make full use of them through services like Apple Pay. Sevices like Apple Pay make the iPhone more of a part of the daily lives. So even if Apple stops innovating in terms of hardware or software,utilities like Apple Pay would allow Apple to have a firm control over the user and have them locked to the iPhone. Having total control over both software and hardware has helped Apple. The company has raked in a whopping 18 billion $ last quarter which pretty much shows that Apple’s buisness model is quiet successful while Android vendors keep competing amongst themselves and at the end no one gets anything.
Android manufacturers don’t want this to happen with Android Wear too. They don’t want to spend billions of $ creating the proper Android Wear device only to know that after few years when they are out of ideas(i.e when commoditization starts taking place),some company like Xiaomi comes up and undercuts their business significantly. They have seen this happening to them in the smartphone market and don’t want to repeat the same with Android Wear. Rather they want to be like Apple. Have total control over hardware and software so that they can control their market and innovation which they have in mind can be properly executed without having to depend on a third party(like Google) for example. This is the main reason why manufacturers don’t want to support Android Wear.
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