Samsung looks to tighten its grip as it enters the smart ring market

Samsung is looking to break into the smart ring market with the launch of its Galaxy Ring.

The design is the company’s first foray into the smart ring market, currently dominated by Oura. Xiaomi, Ultrahuman and RingConn are some other smart ring producers.

Samsung insists it has as much to offer as its competitors, including automatically recorded workout info, analyses and a sleep quality tracking ability, with additional other features including temperature analysis. That means the data points can be used to provide personalised and comprehensive health insights, as well as energy scores. 

How is Samsung planning to compete in the smart ring market?

According to Fortune Business Insights, the global wearable tech market was worth about $120.54bn (€111.65bn) in 2023 and is expected to touch $157.94bn in 2024. By 2032, it is expected to reach $1,415.26bn. 

At the moment, major companies in the wearable technology market include Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony, Huawei and Fossil Group.

Smartwatches and smart bands, along with other fitness trackers are some of the most popular products,. Wearable technology also extends to bracelets, spectacles, clothing, headsets and more.

As such, smart rings are another product making waves in wearable technology. They are light, comfortable and not obvious but are still able to capture key health tracking metrics.

Samsung’s vice-president, head of UK and Ireland, James Kitto, told Euronews: “We know that consumers are interested in smart rings and, in fact, the category overall is expected to grow six times by 2030, according to Contrive Datum Insights. 

“There has been real anticipation for a Samsung smart ring and Galaxy Ring is designed to offer the best of Samsung’s accumulated innovations in the smallest form, delivering a consumer experience unlike anything else in the market. We’re focused on delivering a unique, game-changing smart ring experience, based on our vision of improving the health of billions by connecting devices, services and people.” 

“With this, we’re combining our global pioneering heritage, trusted product design and quality, alongside our established leadership in health and wellness. This also comes through in the design, as our ring is designed to be thin and light, comfortably wearable 24/7. 

“Perhaps most importantly, as part of our connected Galaxy ecosystem, Galaxy Ring offers an unrivalled experience with more integrated health and wellness insights, creating a seamless end-to-end experience to help people easily care for themselves and others around them.”

Kitto points out that, although some users may find it convenient to connect the Smart Ring to their other Samsung devices, it can also be used as a standalone device.

Unlike other companies, Samsung says it will not be charging a subscription fee each month after the initial purchase.

TThis is about making a new market,” Kitto said. “What people don’t want is a product that is separate to their kind of core health and data ecosystem. Samsung Health is the UK’s largest and most used health application on smartphone and so we have an install base already. We’re going to make it incredibly easy for those customers to bring the monitoring from a ring into that data set. 

“It’s a one-off price for the product, after that, it’s your data. We’ll help you analyse it, but we’re not charging you an ongoing subscription fee for the benefit of that. So I think, some quite big differences around some of the smaller niche players out there. But this is an opportunity to drive attached to our core 25 million customers. So I think we’re going to take this market to a scale that so far in the UK hasn’t been witnessed.” 

Currently, Samsung’s smart ring is priced at a steep £399 (€473.29) in the UK.

According to ETNews, Apple may also jump on the smart ring bandwagon soon, having issued patents relating to the product for several years now. This is expected to complement the Apple Watch, allowing users more holistic health insights.

Similarly, in early June this year, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) also granted Fitbit, owned by Google, a patent for a smart ring. The patent is called “Ring for optically measuring biometric data”.

Could rising Asian smartphone players be gaining?

In April this year, Samsung overtook Apple to become the largest smartphone manufacturer in terms of volume globally, according to research firm IDC. At the time, Samsung had a market share of about 20.8%, while Apple had a market share of around 17.3%. 

However, Samsung is still under pressure from other, potentially cheaper Asian smartphone manufacturers such as Oppo, Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi.

One of the main reasons for this is due to Samsung attempting to cater more to the higher-end market in recent years.

This is a marked deviation from the company’s previous strategy of focusing mainly on the middle-income market. As a result, Samsung has lost clients who are looking for cheaper smartphone options.

Other companies producing these cheaper options such as Oppo and Vivo have also invested heavily in their research and development, design and marketing in recent years in their aim to reach a wider market.

Samsung has also lost considerable market share in one of the world’s key smartphone markets, China.

This is mainly because of the company depending on the Google app store, as it uses Android. However, after Google left China in 2010, Chinese clients were unable to keep using the Google app store, thus leading to a steep fall in consumers.

This was made worse by Samsung’s decision to disinvest a number of its consumer electronic devices factories in 2018.

Rival Apple is also feeling the pinch in China at the moment, having faced a loss of sales, as demand for luxury products is still relatively muted.

Samsung is happy to compete with other smartphone producers, as Kitto told Euronews: “We believe that a healthy product category requires healthy competition, increasing the market size and driving more growth – which is good for everyone.

“Since 2011, we’ve invested in research and development, new user experiences and innovative manufacturing processes to create the foldable market from scratch. We look forward to continuing to offer the best foldable experience with each generation. 

“And we’re supercharging the mobile experience with Galaxy AI. Through Galaxy AI, we are creating an unprecedented AI-powered device ecosystem that will bring transformative new possibilities across our portfolio of devices.”