14 DAY TRIAL // Back in April 2015, Apple announced what many considered to be a super-limited smartwatch, with renowned analysts and tech experts projecting modest sales due to its exclusive compatibility with the iPhone.
Nevertheless, backed by the marketing power of the Apple brand, the Apple Watch quickly took over the leading position in an industry that was until then the playground of brands like Fitbit.
Every new generation of the Apple Watch pushed the device forward not only in terms of hardware and design, but also when it comes to sales, as it eventually managed not only to surpass all of its rivals but also to leave all of them behind at a significant distance.
Data provided by Strategy Analytics paints a clear picture of Apple Watch’s dominance in the wearable market.
In 2018, Apple sold a total of 22.5 million smartwatches, while Fitbit, which continues to be the runner-up, shipped only 5.5 million units. Samsung was the third company in the charts with 5.3 million units the entire year.
This performance means Apple controlled no less than 50 percent of the smartwatch market last year, while Fitbit was super-far behind with just 12.2 percent.
Preliminary data for the current year indicate there’s a chance Apple Watch beats its own performance, being on track to set a new personal record versus 2018. Sales of the Apple Watch reached 5.7 million units in the second quarter of 2019, up from no less than 3.8 million in the same quarter of 2018.
The bottom line here is that Apple clearly dominates the smartwatch market, and by the looks of things, nobody can stop the Apple Watch from growing and growing.
So why the title? you may ask. Why should Apple launch an Apple Watch for Android when everything’s going so well? Why should Apple bring one of its best products to a rival platform that the company is actually competing against?
The answer to all these questions isn’t as simple as it may seem to be, so stay with me as we dig in to understand why the Apple Watch shouldn’t remain an iPhone-exclusive product.
“Apple Watch’s worst enemy is itself.”
Moving forward, while the Apple Watch sales keep going up, being limited to just one platform means that sooner or later the device should reach a saturation point. Supposing all iPhone owners buy an Apple Watch, there’ll be a time when everyone with an iPhone will have an Apple Watch as well, at which point sales would decline at full speed, being driven only by people who upgrade.
Market saturation, however, shouldn’t be Apple’s only concern because sooner or later, this should be reached regardless of how limited the audience a product is aimed at actually is.
An Apple Watch for Android could help Apple not only discover a new world but conquer it altogether.
The smartwatch market in the Android ecosystem is so flawed that it’s nearly impossible to find a device running Wear OS and worth the money. Most of the smartwatches powered by Google’s wearable OS are terrible in terms of battery life, lack apps, and don’t have fitness tracking capabilities that the Apple Watch has, not to mention build quality overall.
Google itself doesn’t seem too committed to Wear OS, but this isn’t something very surprising in the first place. Google has become a company that kills way too many projects and leaves others in the cold, and the best examples here are Android Auto and Wear OS. While the first one has recently received a major update, Wear OS is still a platform that barely receives any love from Google.
Many companies are actually struggling with Wear OS, including here Fossil and Mobvoi, but this is also because there’s no alternative for the time being, and developing a proprietary OS would require too much effort, time, and resources. Samsung does it with Tizen, but time and money have never been a problem for the South Korean firm.
Apple shouldn’t launch an Apple Watch for Android only to expand beyond the iPhone, but because Google itself doesn’t seem to be capable of delivering a worthy model for its own platform.
“Google nearly wants an Apple Watch for Android.”
Bringing the Apple Watch to Android could be a major hit for Apple, simply because users here don’t have an alternative. At the same time, it could serve as a teaser of what you could get by moving to an iPhone, as deeper integration is something that more people are interested in these days.
From a technical perspective, this can totally be done, as an Android version of the Watch app could take care of everything. Apple could even offer limited functionality on Android, encouraging users to get an iPhone, much like Samsung does with Samsung Gear on iOS.
On the other hand, an Apple Watch for Android is something that must happen as soon as possible. Sooner or later, someone will come up with a powerful smartwatch for Android, so Apple needs to do while it can still conquer the Android ecosystem.
Living proof of how important it is not to be late to the market is none other than BlackBerry. There was a time when BBM, or BlackBerry Messenger, was simply the best mobile messaging service. Its biggest drawback was that it was limited to BlackBerry devices, and the Canadian company was too stubborn to understand that support for other platforms was needed in the long-term. When it got the message, it was too late, as WhatsApp was already too big for BBM to have a chance on Android and iOS.
This is something that Apple must have in mind when refusing to expand the Apple Watch beyond its own ecosystem. Apple has a huge chance to expand in a market that currently lacks any good options, and if it doesn’t do it soon enough, someone else might come and take the lion’s share, leaving Apple dreaming about the days when it would have dominated the smartwatch world from one end to another.