14 DAY TRIAL // Apple Watch continues to be one very popular device, and new statistics show that sales in the second quarter of this year improved significantly from the same period a year ago.
Sales of the Apple Watch reached 3.5 million worldwide, which is an increase of 30 percent versus the second quarter of 2017, according to Canalys.
But while Apple did manage to sell more devices, its market share in the wearable market actually fell from 43 percent to 34 percent quarter-over-quarter. This is mostly because new devices from Fitbit and Garmin are selling strong these days, the research notes.
On the other hand, Apple keeps dominating China where it sold no less than 250,000 smartwatches, out of which 60 percent featured LTE support. This made the Apple Watch Series 3 the best-shipping smartwatch in Asia in the second quarter, Canalys says.
Rivals planning new smartwatch models
The growth of other vendors should be worrying for Apple, as there’s a chance that future models could eat up more of its share. Samsung, for instance, is getting ready to launch the Galaxy Watch, while Google itself is also believed to be planning a smartwatch that would see daylight alongside the new Pixel 3.
“Apple faces a growing threat from competitors, which have started to pass the million quarterly shipments mark,” said Canalys Research Analyst Vincent Thielke.
“Vendors are trying to differentiate their products with advanced heart-rate metrics, smart coaching and mapping, and consumers now have a much wider range of smartwatches to choose from than they did a year ago. Amid further competition from Samsung and Google, rumored to be launching Galaxy and Pixel watches respectively, Apple needs to work out how to drive refreshes in markets such as the US, where its penetration into the existing iPhone installed base has started to level off.”
Apple itself is also said to be working on a new-generation Watch that would feature a larger screen with an edge-to-edge design. Features like sleep recognition and improved heart rate monitoring are also expected.