According to a new report by Strategy Analytics, the worldwide smartwatch market during the first quarter of 2014 equated to 700.000 units, of which Samsung sold about 500.000, giving the Korean company a great lead over any of its competitors with a 71% marketshare.

Those numbers are a significant increase over the company’s performance in the previous year in the smartwatch sector, where it sold 1M units overall, with a marketshare of 52%. Samsung’s quick rise in the smartwatch race can be attributed to the big marketing push behind their first product, as well as bundling it with one of its best-selling smartphones, the Galaxy Note 3.

And while the numbers only take into account the sales but not the return rates — which were said to be a daunting 30% — they do remain impressive considering that Samsung was only selling its first generation watch, the Galaxy Gear, back in Q1 2014, and hadn’t yet launched the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo, Gear Fit, or Gear Solo. By pushing this next lineup of watches along with its Galaxy S5, the company should be poised to move even more units in Q2 and widen the gap with its competitors.

Speaking of competition, the two brands trailing Samsung were Sony and Pebble, both with 80.000 units sold, for 11.4% of the global marketshare each. Closing the race were Motorola and Qualcomm with 10.000 units and 1.4% share.

While the smartwatch market remains quite tiny compared to smartphones, it is seeing a fast growth and should see more interesting competition starting Q3 2014 with the arrival of the new Android Wear devices as well as the much rumored Apple iWatch.

[Via Yonhap