A total of 4.6 million smartwatches were shipped globally last year, according to Strategy Analytics. That said, when Apple released their recent figures, they conveniently omitting much mention of the Apple Watch, how it was doing and what the impact of its arrival was.
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Apple makes most of its money from the iPhone, but the California tech giant also disclosed results for other product segments Tuesday. Apple sold 47.5 million iPhone units.
Apple shares, however, sagged on Wednesday under the weight of heavy expectations by investors accustomed to the California-based company delivering dizzying earnings results. But some analysts had expected around 49 million. The forecast overshadowed Apple’s strong sales in China, which more than doubled to $13.23 billion from a year earlier. Estimates from other research firms, including Piper Jaffray, Canalys and Slice Intelligence, are in the 2 million to 4 million unit range. But during Tuesday’s earnings call Tim Cook did say that the Apple Watch figures surpassed Cupertino’s expectations. Revenue jumped 33% to $49.61 billion. Thought leaders from the biggest brands and most disruptive companies will share winning growth strategies on the most pressing challenges marketing leaders face today.].
The research firm notes that these are “very early days for mass market smartwatches”.
The report also found that during that same period Samsung’s smartwatch market share plummeted from 73.6 percent marketshare down to 7.5 percent. That’s a huge drop from last year’s second quarter when there was no such thing as an Apple Watch. This was reiterated by Cliff Raskind, Strategy Analytics’ director when he said, “It was the smartwatch industry’s fastest ever growth rate”.
The earnings come shortly after one report claimed the Apple watch sales in the US have fallen dramatically since its debut. “The ball is now in the court of rivals, like Samsung, to respond”, he said.
Move over Samsung. Apple is now the dominant smartwatch vendor. But in this market, Samsung is the company that’s way behind its chief competitor.
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According to White and Zhu, they see long-term innovation opportunities for Apple in the TV, personal robots markets and the highly speculated Apple auto.
