New study on holiday wearables sales gives Apple Watch dominant revenue lead
A new research study has determined that not only did Apple garner nearly half of the online revenue generated, but that number has grown significantly since the last holiday season, at the expense of its rivals Fitbit, Samsung, and Garmin.
New data collected by Slice Intelligence shows Apple holding a commanding 46.6 percent of the holiday market share of wearables' online revenue so far, up from 37 percent at the end of November 2015. Apple's main competitor in the overall space Fitbit, has fallen from 36.8 percent of the revenue, down to 31.9 percent this year.
Other than Apple, the only company to gain revenue over last year's numbers is Garmin, jumping from 7.2 percent to 8.1 percent. Apple's rival in the smartphone market, Samsung, clings to fourth place, with a 4 percent share of the revenue, also down year-over year.
While Apple may or may not be leading in overall numbers of users, it appears to be continuing the trend of dominating the industry's profits, much the same way that it holds nearly the entire smartphone industry's profit.
Slice believes that the revenue from wearables is up 10 percent, year over year, outpacing electronics as a larger whole, but falling behind a 33 percent increase in mobile phones, and 21 percent growth in computers.
The analyst firm pulled revenue data from customer receipts of U.S. online shoppers, which totaled 46,703 buyers of wearables in 2016, between Nov. 1 and Nov. 28.
Tuesday's report comes hot on the heels of IDC's data, suggesting that the Apple Watch was losing ground to less expensive competitors prior to the holiday season .
Apple CEO Tim Cook refuted the numbers, at least in part. While not directly commenting on the time frame of the IDC data which was mostly before the refresh of the Apple Watch in September, Cook claimed that holiday sales of the wearable were "off the charts" with sell-through of the Apple Watch "greater than any week in the product's history."
New data collected by Slice Intelligence shows Apple holding a commanding 46.6 percent of the holiday market share of wearables' online revenue so far, up from 37 percent at the end of November 2015. Apple's main competitor in the overall space Fitbit, has fallen from 36.8 percent of the revenue, down to 31.9 percent this year.
Other than Apple, the only company to gain revenue over last year's numbers is Garmin, jumping from 7.2 percent to 8.1 percent. Apple's rival in the smartphone market, Samsung, clings to fourth place, with a 4 percent share of the revenue, also down year-over year.
While Apple may or may not be leading in overall numbers of users, it appears to be continuing the trend of dominating the industry's profits, much the same way that it holds nearly the entire smartphone industry's profit.
Slice believes that the revenue from wearables is up 10 percent, year over year, outpacing electronics as a larger whole, but falling behind a 33 percent increase in mobile phones, and 21 percent growth in computers.
The analyst firm pulled revenue data from customer receipts of U.S. online shoppers, which totaled 46,703 buyers of wearables in 2016, between Nov. 1 and Nov. 28.
Tuesday's report comes hot on the heels of IDC's data, suggesting that the Apple Watch was losing ground to less expensive competitors prior to the holiday season .
Apple CEO Tim Cook refuted the numbers, at least in part. While not directly commenting on the time frame of the IDC data which was mostly before the refresh of the Apple Watch in September, Cook claimed that holiday sales of the wearable were "off the charts" with sell-through of the Apple Watch "greater than any week in the product's history."
Comments
"Very confident Dave. Our original figures, estimated from receipts taken from all the shoppers in Alaska who have no arms, put the Apple Watch losing market share at a rate of 619% per week."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. In fact, according to our data, people all over the world were making their own Apple Watches and then forcing Apple to buy them."
"That's almost too incredible to believe."
"Yes, almost. But then we got new data, ran them through our proprietary prediction algorithm and discovered that Apple was slightly further ahead than we thought."
"Amazing. And where did this new data come from?"
"Tony."
"And is Tony an acronym for some advanced data sifting application?"
"No, Tony is the guy who delivers sandwiches at lunchtime. He said that Tim Cook reckons the Apple Watch is selling great."
"Oh. And so this proprietary prediction algorithm…?"
"Sarah in accounts. She heard it too."
If I were Apple, I'd be laughing my ass off watching people try and predict sales of their products. I hope Apple stops showing individual sales of all of their products eventually. They can just say we made X amount of money on X amount of revenue and leave it at that. Let everyone else try and figure this all out. LOL
Listening to Apple's efforts/plans put into one or two sentences really brought home the amount of hard work, direction and expertise Apple has to have such a strong product line. It's very impressive especially when compared to what MS, Google, Samsung are doing.
Best
This is going to be Apples and Fitbits game(history repeats)*. Although I do see another brand competing with these two, I just don't know who.
I believe removing the Edition was a mistake as it erodes the luxury of the brand and keeps Rolex/Movado etc. fans away.( Who are willing to spend thousands for a watch )
* when Apple enters a new market they destroy and established player and create a new competitor to go ahead on with.
I think the Edition did its job. It got the high-rollers, fashionista and celebs on board, which helped get the Apple Watch established. Not so sure it's really needed now. The plan has always been health monitoring; that's the market Apple's aiming for.
Just because we can't afford expensive watches doesn't mean other people can't. Apple is allowing Rolex to keep the high-end to themselves.
Celebrities with custom diamond-encrusted Apple Watches are a testament to this markets existence. Now when millionaires walk into an Apple Store they'll walk out with a $1000 watch and pay a jeweler $1,000s of dollars to customize it.
Probably a good idea considering you paid $10,000 for a watch and a year later is out of date. I still think Apple should try and do some kind of swap whether its the entire watch (minus the bands), or just an internals swap if someone purchased a watch of that price.
So Apple, Fitbit, and then the majority of the total market cheap junk "Others". Apple with 90% of profits, Fitbit (or buyer) with 10%, and Others with ~0%.
As for the Edition, we see Apple still having a higher end right now. So it is possible a gold version may emerge in the future once the category is larger, the product more mature, and the timeframe between upgrades gets longer.
Shame about Pebble. It was a good idea but needed to go mainstream faster.
There will be multitude of android devices that will sell like crazy and make no one any money.
Apple as usual will take all of the profit because they focus on well made products that can sell at a price where they can make a profit.
I don't expect them to beat Apple at their game, but who else do you see as the players in this space?