The Apple Watch has been around for quite a while now. Being an accessory for the iPhone, it did not catch enough sales as its complementary half, but it did lead the category to outshine traditional Swiss watches. That's right, the Apple Watch has helped the smartwatches to overtake Swiss watch shipments for the very first time. According to the report, the fourth quarter of 2015 marked a gigantic 8.1 million units of smartwatch shipments.
Apple Watch Lead Smartwatches To Overtake Swiss Watch Shipments
Before the arrival of the Apple Watch, the smartwatch shipments rested at 1.9 million units. This is a whopping 315.6 percent jump in a single year. Moreover, according to Strategy Analytics, the Apple Watch alone constituted a respectable 63 percent of the entire shipments. Samsung came next in line with 16 percent shipments out of the total for its wearable tech. Collectively, Apple and Samsung together shipped 80 percent of worldwide smartwatches.
In contrast to the traditional Swiss watches, 7.9 million units were shipped last quarter, which is a decrease of 4.8 percent from 8.3 million units shipped in the fourth quarter of 2014.
“The Swiss watch industry has been very slow to react to the development of smartwatches," said Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics. "The Swiss watch industry has been sticking its head in the sand and hoping smartwatches will go away. Swiss brands, like Tag Heuer, accounted for a tiny 1 percent of all smartwatches shipped globally during Q4 2015, and they are long way behind Apple, Samsung and other leaders in the high-growth smartwatch category.”
Even though Apple does not release sale digits of its Apple Watch in its financial earning results, the company has instead grouped it under its ''Other products'' category. This is the same category that also includes the Apple TV, iPod, Beats and accessory revenue. Previously, Strategy Analytics anticipated 4 million units sold in the second quarter and 4.5 million units sold in the third quarter, stating that the company sold an estimated number of 13.6 million Apple Watch units in 2015.
While this might be troubling for Swiss manufacturers, some of them have begun launching their own smart wearables, for instance TAG Heuer with its own Android powered smartwatch. Moreover, early rumors also suggest that the Apple Watch 2 would be launched at a March 15 event. Nonetheless, it is expected that it will focus on minor changes on the wearable.
This is it for now, folks. How eager are you for the second generation Apple Watch? Share your thoughts about the Apple Watch shipments in the comments.
