Numbers released by market research company IDC show that 50% less smartwatches have been sold this quarter compared to the same quarter last year. Especially Apple reports bad numbers, sales of smartwatches of the Cupertino tech giant dropped with nearly 72%.
It's possible the drop is caused by potential smartwatch buyers that were waiting for a new Apple Watch that would be released in the next quarter. Sales of Apple Watch Series 2 are not included in these numbers. "Apple could be heading for a sequential rebound", according to IDC.
Not all smart watch vendors show negative growth, Garmin reports a year over year growth of 324%. The company focusses especially on health and fitness, where other devices try to be multi-purpose. This strategy has been very beneficial to the company, according to IDC.
Apple sold 1.1 smartwatches this quarter, Garmin followed with 0.6 million devices sold and Samsung comes third with 0.4 million smartwatches sold. They are followed by Lenovo and Pebble who sold 0.1 million each and saw their market share drop with 54% and 27% respectively.
Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers concludes, "It has also become evident that at present smartwatches are not for everyone. Having a clear purpose and use case is paramount, hence many vendors are focusing on fitness due to its simplicity. However, moving forward, differentiating the experience of a smartwatch from the smartphone will be key and we're starting to see early signs of this as cellular integration is rising and as the commercial audience begins to pilot these devices."
