Is The Samsung Galaxy Gear A Success After All?
November 19, 2013
One day after Business Korea reported Samsung only sold 50,000 Galaxy Gear units, the company announced an entirely different number. According to Reuters, the South Korean company sold 800,000 of the wearable devices during the first two months of release, making it the “world’s most popular smartwatch.”
Announced in September at the IFA 2013 conference in Berlin, Germany, the Samsung Galaxy Gear arrived to mostly bad reviews. Former New York Times tech reporter David Pogue, for example, called its design “inconsistent and frustrating,” and said that no one should buy it, Based on today’s numbers, many didn’t take Pogue’s advice.
In a statement to Reuters, Samsung notes the smartwatch is “the most sold wearable watch available in the market place...and we plan to expand its availability by expanding mobile devices that work with the Gear.”
Priced at around $300, the Samsung Galaxy Gear works as an accessory that interacts with a Samsung smartphone or tablet. It includes an OLED screen offering basic functions like photos, hands-free calls, and message notifications.
Apple, of course, is said to be working on its own wearable device that could launch sometime next year. The so-called “iWatch” is likely to come in his and her varieties and heavily focus on providing fitness tools to users. In October, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster said that Apple could sell 10 million iWatch units during the first year of release.
For more information, see: Wearable Devices, Not The 'iTV' Are In Apple's Immediate Future, LG Could Soon Be Supplying Flexible OLED Screens To Apple For The 'iWatch', and Tim Cook Hints That 'New Product Categories' Could Come From Apple In 2014.