Research firm Canalys estimates that Apple has sold nearly 7 million Apple Watches since this late April.
According to Canalys, Apple continues to “dominate the smartwatch market“. Since Apple Watch‘s official launch in April 2015, the company has shipped almost 7 million Apple Watch units. This number is more than other vendors’ combined shipments over the previous 5 quarters.
Canalys also pointed out that Apple was the only smart watch vendor to sell more than 300,000 watches in the third quarter. For example, Pebble, helped with the release of Pebble Time Steel, sold more than 200,000 smartwatches, counted sales of all of its smartwatch lines. The sales of Samsung’s Gear watch dropped as the company planned to launch Gear S2.
Meanwhile, in the basic fitness bands market, Xiaomi and Fitbit are leading in the third quarter. Xiaomi’s Mi Band exceeded 10 million shipments during quarter 3. All thanks to the company’s aggressive pricing at $15 and frequent promotion that helped it reach sales targets, especially in China. Whereas, Fitbit’s Charge HR band continued its strong sales performance.
The Apple Watch is currently the highest-profile in wearable tech category. Its strong competitions include Samsung, Motorola and LG. Its dominance in the smartwatch sector is the combination of its design, software-hardwear integration and brand allure.
As the holiday shopping season is driving near, the Apple Watch will have to face more strong competitions when two high-end watchmakers Fossil and Tag Heuer are both planning to release their own first smartwatch by the end of this year.
The Apple Watch was available for preordering on April 24, costs from $349 to $17,000. Customers have to order the device online and have it shipped to their homes. They can check out how the different models, different sizes look like on their wrists and explore features before making an order.
When it first launched, Apple watch came in two sizes 42mm and 38mm, and three designs: aluminum-cased Apple Watch Sport, stainless-steel-cased Apple Watch and 18-carat-gold cased Apple Watch Edition. The first designs have silver and space gray options. The second one comes in stainless steel color or black color. The last one has yellow gold and rose gold versions.
Apple provided a number of band choice, including a Milanese loop of metal mesh with magnets, a leather band that auto-attaches, a segmented metal link band, a classic leather watchband, a leather loop band, and a more plasticized sport band in bright colors.
Five month after launching, Apple Watch had new models. In early September, Apple introduced the Apple Watch Sport in either gold or rose gold in anodized aluminum. Whereas, the stainless steel models now had a Space Black version with a black sport brand or a Product Red band. Along with that, Apple released WatchOS 2 with new watch faces with new complications, more information and back and forth scrolling in time with the digital Crown.
These changes followed by an increase of shipments so it is likely that Apple will introduce some new features to the Apple watch to generate demand in the fourth quarter.