Take these estimates with an appropriate grain of salt, but reading between the lines of a recent analysis by The NPD Group indicates that smartwatches running Wear OS account for at most 12% of unit sales in the US, and the real numbers are likely much lower than that. Although Google continues investing in, redesigning and rebranding the platform, which now boasts plenty of hardware partners, it has barely made a dent in the market.

NPD's report (which covers the year from November to November 2017-2018) claims that overall dollar sales of smartwatches in the US are up by 51 percent, while unit sales have risen 61 percent, representing a total $5 billion in sales. During that period Apple, Samsung, and Fitbit claimed 88% of sales. That leaves roughly 12% of the pie to Wear OS and every other smartwatch platform, including Garmin and other brands. At best Google can lay claim to that whole chunk, and odds are it's less.

A few other fun factoids also surfaced from the analysts' report. Apparently 16% of adults in the 'states now own a smartwatch, up 12% from 2017, and younger folks age 18-34 represent most of that growth.

Now, reports like these are based on estimates and projections put together by industry analysts, so they may be generally accurate even if they aren't precisely right, there's certainly some wiggle room in how these metrics should be interpreted. But even with the benefit of the doubt, sales for Wear OS-powered devices just don't measure up to the competition. And, in our opinion, neither does the platform.