Apple has shipped almost 7 million smartwatches since it launched, a number passing the combined shipment of all other vendors over the past five quarters, the latest report from Canalys reported.
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Remember when the Apple Watch was just a rumor, and everyone said it would “kill” competitors like Pebble?
What’s more, Apple actually shipped more than 300,000 watches in the third quarter of the year, and Canalys says that no other company got even close to this figure.
The watch unit itself is remarkably thin – thinner than most normal watches rather than smart ones. Samsung was the big loser in the quarter as it saw Gear shipments decline. Vendors will continue to battle for position behind Apple in Q4 as a raft of new devices from a diverse set of companies hits the market.
The focus for all wearable makes now falls on the crucial holiday season, which will see new smartwatch entrants from Fossil and Tag Heuer.
“After experiencing significant supply chain constraints early on, Apple managed to overcome its production struggles with the Apple Watch and is building momentum going into Q4”, he said.
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In the basic bands market, Fitbit and Xiaomi were on top. Xiaomi, whose first ultra-affordable wearable arrived in June past year, has shipped 10 million wearables to date. Shipments are steadily increasing as it has greatly expanded the Watch’s channel footprint internationally’. “WatchOS 2 has brought native apps to the platform, and new colours and styles have refreshed the lineup, but Apple needs to continue to generate demand six months after launch”. Fitbit was able to meet its sales predictions in the third quarter, and its Charge HR band also performs very well since it launched recently. It nearly looks too tiny on my wrist at first (the face is roughly comparable in size to a 38mm analog watch), but it can easily work for those with smaller wrists, on which most smartwatches tend to look enormous.
