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Apple Shipped an Estimated 30.7 Million Apple Watches in 2019, Beating Entire Swiss Watch Industry
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Again, so?
You assume my descendants will have any interest in owning, much less wearing a Rolex besides the resale value it may have. Even then, where are the odds that it will still be in mint condition after all this time?
I mean, if I just need a simple watch to keep time, why not just get a cheap Casio Watch?
Lastly, maybe I just don’t care to be seen wearing a Rolex Watch?
I simply don’t care for the benefits that you have listed above.
There seems to be two sides to this argument, but both sides can agree this is the worst thing you can do with a watch gifted from a deceased grandparent.
Heh! That made me laugh out loud.
But I wouldn't be at all surprised to see many Gen-Z's given a box of their grandfather's old stuff (a stack of classic B&W movies on DVD, a cathode ray TV, a landline telephone, some old analog watch, a Walkman and pile of cassettes, a portable typewriter) and just tossing it or putting it in the Salvation Army bin.
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Yes, because a movies on DVD, a cathode ray TV, a landline telephone and an analog watch have so much in common.
Too bad an Apple Watch won't even make it to his kids.
Too bad an Apple Watch won't even make it to his kids.
Took me a while to make it through all the comments, so I didn't make too similar of a comment... even though I'm sure I will 
Anyways, I own a Series 4 Apple Watch along with 2 Tag Heuer Formula 1 watches. In a sense they compete because I refuse to wear a watch on each of my wrist. However, since I'm OCD about closing my activity rings, I started to take the strap off my Apple Watch and toss it in my shirt pocket on days I wear a dress shirt to work with one of my Tag's, just to make sure I get credit for the times I am standing.
I do have a great appreciation for both my Tag and Apple watches, but there is little overlap. To me, my Tag watches have a sense of fashion, uniqueness and elegant design that the Apple Watch doesn't have, and that's OK. Because my Apple Watch can provide me health/fitness data, smart home control, etc. that my Tag never could.
However, I don't understand the need to bash either of these just because you cant comprehend why others would find value in them. Personally I upgraded a perfectly fine Series 0 to the Series 4 for the ECG feature alone. 9 months later it wound up being a huge help to my PCP and cardiologist. They had been trying to diagnose a sporadic cardiac event that had been troubling me for almost 10 years. I've done EKG's, worn an event monitor and been rushed to the hospital all in an effort to figure out what was going on and nothing worked. 9 months after I got my Series 4, something triggered this cardiac event. With my Apple Watch I was able to take multiple ECG's while en-route to the hospital, which was a big deal because the event was over before I made it. I followed up with my cardiologist and emailed him the information from the ECG's which allowed him to finally figure out what was going on after all those years.
Is this a unique case, sure, as I'm sure many Apple Watch owners may never use the ECG feature. But even when I have one of my Tag's strapped to my wrist, my Apple Watch is almost always near by.
Anyways, I own a Series 4 Apple Watch along with 2 Tag Heuer Formula 1 watches. In a sense they compete because I refuse to wear a watch on each of my wrist. However, since I'm OCD about closing my activity rings, I started to take the strap off my Apple Watch and toss it in my shirt pocket on days I wear a dress shirt to work with one of my Tag's, just to make sure I get credit for the times I am standing.
I do have a great appreciation for both my Tag and Apple watches, but there is little overlap. To me, my Tag watches have a sense of fashion, uniqueness and elegant design that the Apple Watch doesn't have, and that's OK. Because my Apple Watch can provide me health/fitness data, smart home control, etc. that my Tag never could.
However, I don't understand the need to bash either of these just because you cant comprehend why others would find value in them. Personally I upgraded a perfectly fine Series 0 to the Series 4 for the ECG feature alone. 9 months later it wound up being a huge help to my PCP and cardiologist. They had been trying to diagnose a sporadic cardiac event that had been troubling me for almost 10 years. I've done EKG's, worn an event monitor and been rushed to the hospital all in an effort to figure out what was going on and nothing worked. 9 months after I got my Series 4, something triggered this cardiac event. With my Apple Watch I was able to take multiple ECG's while en-route to the hospital, which was a big deal because the event was over before I made it. I followed up with my cardiologist and emailed him the information from the ECG's which allowed him to finally figure out what was going on after all those years.
Is this a unique case, sure, as I'm sure many Apple Watch owners may never use the ECG feature. But even when I have one of my Tag's strapped to my wrist, my Apple Watch is almost always near by.
It's a fantastic device, no wonder that it sells well.
It doesn't really compete with Swiss mechanicals, which I also own several of. Different use cases.
It doesn't really compete with Swiss mechanicals, which I also own several of. Different use cases.
Regardless, my expectation continues to be that the entire Swiss watch industry will eventually fall to the Apple Watch. Ultimately, Swiss watchmakers bank on selling their customers intangibles such as a sense of accomplishment and success. Meanwhile, the Apple Watch is all about bringing utility to the wrist, and real estate on the wrist is simply too valuable to be a home for just intangibles.
There is just no way the Swiss Watch market can effectively compete with the Apple Watch.
It goes both ways. If you treat the Apple Watch (hand computers) and mechanical watches (timepieces) as separate entities, 2 things are factual
- The traditional Swiss markets cannot compete with Apple Watch as a hand computer. Fairly obvious. The features are just too great in number for a mechanical watch to match.
- Apple Watch cannot compete with the Swiss Watch market as a piece of jewelry. Proven by the Gold Plated Apple Watch Edition. There are certain prices Apple cannot charge for Apple Watch simply because the Apple Watch does not last long enough to be worth the price paid upfront.
Finally, the original post makes one tactical argument which shapes the whole argument: They only include the Swiss watch market. That market excludes the following brands, sell as many or more than any single Swiss watch brand:
- Seiko (Japan)
- Casio (Japan)
- Timex (US)
- Fossil (US)
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Now that I think of it, there's something else to consider:
Apple Watch sales will be artificially inflated by their obsolescence. Turnover for a timepiece should be significantly lower. All I'm saying is it's hard to quote Apple Watch sales as a way to say the watch industry is dying. Apple Watch sales will always be higher, but every year the number of Apple Watch sales include a number of replacement Apple Watches. Sales of each aren't all that comparable.
Apple Watch sales will be artificially inflated by their obsolescence. Turnover for a timepiece should be significantly lower. All I'm saying is it's hard to quote Apple Watch sales as a way to say the watch industry is dying. Apple Watch sales will always be higher, but every year the number of Apple Watch sales include a number of replacement Apple Watches. Sales of each aren't all that comparable.
I see them both as competing for a spot on your wrist.
I know how the Swiss watch market works. It basically sells the buyer on intangibles such as being associated with values such as success. You buy and wear a branded watch because you hope that doing so conveys a particular image to the people around you, or that it represents having achieved a certain milestone (such as being rich enough to afford a Rolex).
The customer will eventually have to make a choice. And I will never ever bet against Apple.
You must have made a killing on AirPower.
Let's call it like it is, Swiss watches sell themselves as looking better and being better crafted. Both thing are true.
and the competing for your wrist thing is nonsense. That’s like saying your dress shoes and your work boots are competing. They aren’t
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Whatever I may have lost on AirPower, I likely have made back many times over elsewhere.
The Apple Watch is constantly tracking my activity. Each moment spent not wearing an Apple Watch is a moment that my activity ring is not getting filled, or me not getting access to a feature like fall tracking should I need it. And I believe that as the Apple Watch goes on to get more health-tracking features (like that rumoured glucose tracker) and becomes more integrated with our daily lives, the opportunity cost of not wearing one may well become too great to ignore. The same way a smartphone is such a key part of our daily lives that it’s assumed everyone around me has their phone with them at all times. Heck, even services like Uber and Grabfood are built around the assumption that everyone has a smartphone on them.
It’s not like dress shows and work boots because there isn’t really an opportunity cost to wearing one over the other, barring comfort level. If my work boots could provide some potentially life-saving function or health-tracking functionality, I may well just wear it to a wedding, fashion faux pas be darned.
I believe gyms incorporating the Apple Watch are expecting consumers to fall into the same habit of giving up their exercise goals, it’s just another marketing tactic. My personal belief is that the Apple Watch will keep very few people motivated for long stretches of time. There are undoubtedly the rare few who’s life will be changed by the Apple Watch and they will make great marketing material based on those accomplishments but I just don’t see what the Apple Watch can do to make large changes to normal human behavior for the average person.
"Disposable" product? There is a big ebay market for used apple watches while people buy new models. I upgrade every 2-3 years and sell my old ones, not thrown away. My 4th gen watch is still pretty solid.
Apple only offered the gold watches for the first gen and moved on to ceramics which are still spendy. I prefer the stainless space black watches because they are not flashy.
👍
I have had a Breitling for nearly 2 decades and I haven't worn it in years since I started wearing Apple watches.
That's because you had a Breitling, and you probably appreciate the niche of the Apple Watch more than it.
I don't think so. I work in a machine shop and can't hear my phone ring, nor can I feel my phone vibrate with all the machines making their noise. My watch vibrates well enough to feel, plus I can just peek to see if the text or call is worth responding to. So, 90% of the time when I see someone wearing anything other than a smartwatch, I wonder what's up their arse.