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Nearly Half of All Smartwatches Shipped Last Quarter Were Apple Watches

Thursday August 31, 2017 8:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol

Apple Watch was the world's most popular smartwatch by a significant margin last quarter, with an estimated 49.6 percent market share in the April-June period, according to data shared with MacRumors by research firm IDC.

In other words, the Apple Watch accounted for just under half of all smartwatches shipped in the June quarter.

IDC estimates Apple Watch shipments totaled 3.4 million units in the quarter, well ahead of runner-up Samsung's estimated 800,000 smartwatches shipped. Garmin trailed in third place with an estimated 600,000 shipments.

IDC: worldwide smartwatch shipments (units in millions)
Strategy Analytics estimated Apple Watch shipments totaled 2.8 million units last quarter, which is 600,000 lower, so there is clearly some discrepancy between the datasets. As it stands, only Apple knows exactly how many watches it has sold.

Apple doesn't break out Apple Watch sales like it does with iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Instead, it groups the wearable under its "Other Products" category, alongside Apple TV, AirPods, Beats, iPods, and other accessories.

Apple reported "Other Products" revenue of $2.7 billion in the June quarter, representing year-over-year growth of 23 percent.

On a conference call in early August, Apple CEO Tim Cook did reveal that Apple Watch sales were up 50 percent in the June quarter.

Sales of Apple Watch were up over 50 percent in the June quarter, and it's the number one selling smartwatch in the world by a very wide margin. Apple Watch is having a positive impact on peoples' health and daily lives, and motivating them to sit less and move more. With features like built-in GPS and waterproofing, Apple Watch Series 2 is the perfect companion for hiking, running, and swimming.

Quarterly smartwatch shipments totaled an estimated 6.9 million units overall, including 300,000 shipments by Fossil. IDC said it defines smartwatches as watches that can run third-party apps on the device itself.

IDC reports that Apple trailed Chinese company Xiaomi by 100,000 shipments in the overall wearables market, but the broader category consists of many inexpensive fitness trackers and bands with limited functionality.

"The transition towards more intelligent and feature-filled wearables is in full swing," said Jitesh Ubrani, senior research analyst for IDC. "For years, rudimentary fitness trackers have acted as a gateway to smartwatches and now we're at a point where brands and consumers are graduating to a more sophisticated device."

Read More: Basic Trackers Take a Back Seat as Smartwatches Accelerate in the Second Quarter, According to IDC

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 5, watchOS 6

Tag: IDC

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Top Rated Comments

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filmantopia

27 months ago

I remember a constant onslaught of Apple Watch imminent failure predictions when it first launched. Shouldn't people know better by now?

Rating: 14 Votes

pradeepbabloo

27 months ago

There is my contribution as well :)
I am highly satisfied with the product...no complaints as of yet!

Rating: 10 Votes

chetttos

27 months ago

BUT PEOPLE ONLY WANTS ROUND WATCHES! /s

Rating: 7 Votes

Zirel

27 months ago

Smart watches are certainly cool, but I have so many device I need to charge each day that my head will explode if there is yet another device to charge. Maybe Apple will devise a micro nuclear power plant (satire) to power these devices and free us from the charging monster.

Why is that?

Don't you take out and wear your watch every day?

The Apple Watch is exactly the same, you just have a place you put it over.

Rating: 6 Votes

CarlJ

27 months ago

That people will buy anything with an Apple logo on it?

Keep banging that drum. Clearly, nobody ever chose to buy an Apple product because it was well designed and did its job well, they only ever buy Apple products because of the logo.

Rating: 5 Votes

seatton

27 months ago

I work out every day and more and more people at my gym wear an apple watch.

Rating: 4 Votes

npmacuser5

27 months ago

I still hardly ever see people interact with their Apple Watches other then to glance at the time. People wear them, but I question how much of the public actually uses their features.

The gym seems to be the one area that people engage with the "smart" in these Apple Watches and if that's the case then I question the overall utility they have.

Sales numbers look ok, but nothing stellar. Owning the largest piece of a new market pie that's not showing signs of strong growth isn't super encouraging.

I look at mine 10 times more then my iPhone, notifications go to my watch. In fact my iPhone stays in my pocket unless I need a picture or respond at length. I even take selfies or group tripod pictures using my watch as the screen. Rather then connect to the car for my iPhone calls, just use the watch. The workout and activity Monitor are heavily used, as is the health app using the data from the watch. Second only to my iPhone, the watch, a useful device.

Rating: 4 Votes