Apple winds up selling 3.6 million smartwatches
Apple sold 3.6 million Apple Watches in the second quarter, beating some analysts’ expectations and making the company the dominant provider of smart wearable devices after just one quarter of sales, market research firm IDC said in a report.Apple sold 66 percent of the 5.5 million smart wearables, defined as devices capable of running third-party applications, said Ramon Llamas, research manager for IDC’s wearables team. Only 1.4 million smart devices, almost all of them Samsung Electronics’ Gear products, were sold in the quarter a year earlier, Llamas said Thursday.
Apple hasn’t released sales data for the watch, though it has said sales exceeded those of the iPhone and iPad in their first quarter on the market. The Cupertino, California-based company reported revenue of $2.64 billion for a broad “other” category that includes the Apple Watch and products such as Beats headphones and iPods. Bloomberg estimated second-quarter watch sales were at least 1.9 million.
Apple vaulted to second place in the total wearables market, which includes fitness-tracking devices made by Fitbit, Garmin and Jawbone. Fitbit held the top position with 4.4 million units sold in the quarter.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, estimates Apple sold 2.5 million watches in the quarter, based on an average selling price of $550. Apple sells three basic versions of the watch that range from $349 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model.
“If you believe the IDC numbers, Apple’s doing better than you probably thought” in wearables, Munster said in an interview. “Even if you don’t believe the IDC numbers, they still have taken great market share in no time. The category is setting up well for Apple, but it’s going to take a year or a year-and-a-half to really take off.”
Fitbit executives have said their business has not been hurt by the Apple Watch because their products focus on consumers who are specifically concerned with health and fitness. Bloomberg
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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