Estimate pegs holiday Apple Watch sales at 5.2M, giving Apple a 63% marketshare
Though Apple has not officially announced any sales figures for its wearable Apple Watch, that hasn't stopped research firms from estimating its performance, with new data from Strategy Analytics pegging the device at 5.2 million shipments in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Total smartwatch shipments are estimated to have grown 1 percent annually to 8.2 million units in the holiday quarter. That would give Apple a dominant 63 percent share of the entire segment.
Though Apple has not announced any actual sales figures for the Apple Watch, the company did say a new record was set for sales during the three-month period. Accordingly, Strategy Analytics's projections suggest sales increased slightly year over year, from 5.1 million Apple Watches in the holiday 2015 quarter.
The next closest competitor, according to Strategy Analytics, was estimated to be Samsung, with just 800,000 units shipped and a 10 percent share. That was a reduction from 2.7 million units and 16 percent in the same period a year prior.
In all, Strategy Analytics forecasts that Apple shipped 11.6 million units in 2016, with the majority of those coming from the launch of Apple Watch Series 2 in the last few months of the year. Total smartwatch shipments for the year were pegged at 21.1 million.
Still, the firm believes that total Apple Watch shipments in 2016 were down from 2015, when the wearable device first debuted. Its estimates suggest the Apple Watch shipped 13.6 million units in 2015.
As such, with slower shipments from both Apple and Samsung, the 1 percent growth forecast for 2016 was attributed to other manufacturers. Though Strategy Analytics did not single out any other competitors, it said total shipments in the "others" category grew from 4.5 million in 2015 to 7.1 million in 2016.
Total smartwatch shipments are estimated to have grown 1 percent annually to 8.2 million units in the holiday quarter. That would give Apple a dominant 63 percent share of the entire segment.
Though Apple has not announced any actual sales figures for the Apple Watch, the company did say a new record was set for sales during the three-month period. Accordingly, Strategy Analytics's projections suggest sales increased slightly year over year, from 5.1 million Apple Watches in the holiday 2015 quarter.
The next closest competitor, according to Strategy Analytics, was estimated to be Samsung, with just 800,000 units shipped and a 10 percent share. That was a reduction from 2.7 million units and 16 percent in the same period a year prior.
In all, Strategy Analytics forecasts that Apple shipped 11.6 million units in 2016, with the majority of those coming from the launch of Apple Watch Series 2 in the last few months of the year. Total smartwatch shipments for the year were pegged at 21.1 million.
Still, the firm believes that total Apple Watch shipments in 2016 were down from 2015, when the wearable device first debuted. Its estimates suggest the Apple Watch shipped 13.6 million units in 2015.
As such, with slower shipments from both Apple and Samsung, the 1 percent growth forecast for 2016 was attributed to other manufacturers. Though Strategy Analytics did not single out any other competitors, it said total shipments in the "others" category grew from 4.5 million in 2015 to 7.1 million in 2016.
Comments
Imaging features such as:
"You seem thirsty, sip on a glass of water soon (300 ml)".
"Your blood pressure seems a little high. You might consider some yoga or meditation classes. In the meantime here is the number of your doctor to book a checkup".
"I've tested your blood and you have 40mg of Lp(a) per decilitre. It is recommended you consume around 3,000 mg (3 grams) of vitamin C daily. I found the number for Holland & Barret in your contacts. Ask them if they have vitamin c in stock. They have a sale on currently".
"I am your long lost cousin from Nigeria. Please wire me $1M and I will make you a king in my country".
Um... what? Hello? Someone missing an elephant? Right there, in the room? With them?
I am close to purchasing a smartwatch and the stand alone call capability of the Samsung Gear S3 frontier is pretty compelling. On the other hand, Apple Pay using the watch is a pretty nice feature. Android wear watches have virtually no compelling features. The next big hardware paradigm is being lost to Google.
Now, if Apple would just put a baseband radio in the watch. . .
Just got mine a couple of weeks ago.
If you are old enough to remember when microwave ovens were first introduced, they were marketed as cooking a hot dog or cup cake in 30 seconds or so. And people thought, "Wow, that's neat, but how often will I need a hot dog or cup cake cooked like that?". The Apple Watch is very similar to that. My first thought was "neat gimmick, but how useful is it .... really?". After 2 weeks, the answer is "It's almost indispensable". It reminds me to be active - as an engineer, I sit at my computer all day, this reminds me to get up and go for a walk, to stand, to simply breathe, to wind down and go to bed. Simple things - but you know - after a few weeks, these little reminders add up to making me feel better. I feel more rested, and my diet is working better.
When I'm driving and I get a call - the watch is a speaker phone - hands free phone device that sounds GREAT. People don't realize I am not wearing a handset while I conduct my conversation as I drive along the country roads. ( I have a 90 minute commute each way to work - I work in the space industry, so my job is remote). In meetings, a text comes through with a haptic vibration and I can easily respond discreetly that I will get back to them shortly. When I need to navigate in a city, I get turn by turn instructions on my wrist so that I don't even need to look at a screen. And that's just the basics. It's only going to get better.
As it happens, this is what's properly referred to as a "guess".
The article doesn't even bother to convey what the "guess" is based on (i.e., device's network presence, for example).
Hey! I love Apple - I'm estimating they sold 52 million watches!
(Must be accurate - it's based on a clever "decimal point reconfiguration" method.)