Apple Continues to Lead the Smartwatch Market
The Apple Watch still holds a healthy lead in the smartwatch race, but its market share has taken a bit of a dip in the most recent quarter.
More than half of the market
According to new data from Strategy Analytics, Apple sold 2.2 million watches during the first quarter of 2016 to capture 52.4 percent of the market. The company’s Neil Mawston discusses more about the data:
“We estimate Apple Watch shipped 2.2 million units and captured 52 percent smartwatch marketshare worldwide in Q1 2016, dipping from 63 percent share in Q4 2015. Samsung shipped 0.6 million smartwatches, capturing 14 percent marketshare worldwide for second position. Apple Watch and Samsung Gear models are expanding fast across dozens of countries, but competition from LG, Motorola and others is ramping up fast.”
During the important fourth quarter of 2015, the firm estimated that Apple sold around 5.1 million watches, so that’s definitely a substantial drop off.
In the most recent time frame, Samsung was in a distant second with just 600,000 units shipped. All other companies combined to ship 1.4 million smartwatches during the quarter.
Waiting for the next generation
A recent price cut to the Sport edition and new bands didn't seem to garner much new interest from consumers.
The next-generation Apple Watch is rumored to arrive sometime in the fall, along with the “iPhone 7.”
Earlier this month, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said he expects that the device will offer “spec improvements with limited changes to form factor design.” That’s akin to the iPhone release cycle that only sees a major hardware change every two years.
Interestingly, a report last week in The Wall Street Journal noted that Apple may add some type of LTE connectivity to the new watch.
Back at the special media event introducing the iPhone SE and smaller iPad Pro in March, Apple announced a number of new bands and a $50 price drop for the entry-level Sport model. A 38mm version starts at $299. But that price drop didn’t seem to stoke much additional interest from consumers.