Apple Watch Sales Estimated at 5.1 Million in Holiday Quarter, Swiss Watch Sales in Trouble

[igorsky]

Ahh, yes I can see the incoming deluge of disdain for luxury watch owners. Like they should be ashamed to own one, and should never mention that they own one on a forum. I never understood that type of insecurity.

I never understood the need to announce one's possessions on a forum...that's its own form of insecurity. But you pretty much hit the nail on the head about it in your last post, so I'm not sure why you're taking issue. Anyway my post was not a critique of luxury watch owners, just an observation that we're all victims of fashion in one way or another.

 

[Keirasplace]

Keep dreaming and thanks for trolling.



Uhm, all of them?

Coming from a troll, someone who got schooled on sales number by Redweasel, that's pretty fun; like I said, see you in two years...

 

[dogslobber]

Welcome to the world of fashion, of which Apple has demonstrated it is desperate for its approval.

While Apple is not addressing the watch face at the moment, they're doing exactly the same thing with watch bands, because they know they have no other way to make their product fit this essential need for most of humanity. So welcome also to modern society.

I tend to agree with you here. Apple isn't a luxury brand for they provide practical tools for technical jobs. An iWatch just sounds geeky and some toff with too much money won't want to lower themselves to be comparable to the unwashed masses. I mean, which housewife of NJ's husband wants to be outed for wearing an iWatch when their equally indebted neighbor has a posh Swatch?

 

[spinedoc77]

I never understood the need to announce one's possessions on a forum...that's its own form of insecurity. Anyway my post was not a critique of luxury watch owners, just an observation that we're all victims of fashion in one way or another.

No disrespect intended, but I think you are transposing some type of material insecurity with a discussion which is made relevant by discussing exactly those luxury watches. Seriously, if you scroll up you can see the title of this thread and realize it's about luxury watches. Sooooo.... a forum member that mentions he owns a luxury watch in a thread about luxury watches? Yeah I know.

The other amusing thing is that we ALL are slaves to fashion. I guarantee a years salary (crap I announced I have a job), my house (damn I shouldn't have said I own a home) and yes my Rolex that I could meet you and pick out a dozen things you chose because of fashion and not 100% based on functionality. I could probably search through your threads and see you talking about your phone or smartwatch, does that count as an insecure announcement?

Don't mean to pick on you, I just get annoyed when someone insecure needs to call out someone else, especially when it's in relation to relevant topics to discussion.

 

[Keirasplace]

The iPhone is the one in trouble here. I've been using Apple Watch for more than three months now, and I've noticed the phone is not looked at as often. Apple Watch is great and in some cases better for notification, weather, MSM and email than iPhone. Never mind that Watch is much better at exercise tracking than iPhone.

With new low power WiFi standard 802.11ah on horizon, Apple is sure to take advantage. Can't wait until day when I stop picking up iPhone..okay maybe once or twice a day.

Own an Omega 15 years ago and stopped wearing a year after. Now it looks even older. I prefer Apple Watch for all occasions.

Well, if you switch from the Iphone to the Watch, especially one that's tightly integrated with the phone (the phone is bigger so it will always have this advantage) Apple is not in trouble. You'll replace watch/phone combos every 3-4 years, maybe even buy more than one watch. Apple cannibalising its own sales is rarely an issue, as long as they stay inside the ecosystem it grows and strengthens.

Also, making a fantastic smart watch is even more R&D than a great smart phones, anyone without profits to do it will get creamed.

A lot of current phone players will be in trouble if everything switches to a small independent watch.

 

[andreyirra]

Maybe it's because Swiss timepieces are built to last?


AMOLED suffers from burn in though.

That perception has lasted and I even have shared it but let's tear it down. The gen 1 Apple Watch will last. It's like the first iPod: if properly serviced it has lasted a dcade and a half and still works the same.

The same could be said for a normal watch: if properly serviced it will give you the normal funcionality for a long time which is to just give the time.

An Apple Watch will also last bcause if properly serviced it could be like the iPod.

People are saying it won't last because they want new funcionality added and it will have a limit regarding that. But it will have the same funcionality it had when it came out... exactly like the same functionality a normal watch had when bought.

So in other words, people are perfectly able to get by with a watch that just gives you the time and in the same way there will be people who can get by with the funcionality of the first gen apple watch... no matter how much time passes. The limit is only the iPhone App support which I'm guessing will last almost like the iTunes support for the original iPod.

 

[allanfries]

I'm still amazed that people are actually still buying the apple watch.

 

[El Cabong]

As much as Apple, Fitbit, Pebble et al have hurt low-end ($100-500) Swiss watch sales, a factor that people don't account for is that a proliferation of American watch brands (such as MVMT, Shinola, and Martenero) have been making inroads in the analog watch market at the same price point.

Whether it's a smartwatch or an analog watch, there are simply more alternatives to buying a Swiss watch.

 

[StyxMaker]

This is an opinion without an iota of evidence to back it up. The fact is that the Swiss watch business went into decline at almost the exact same time the Apple Watch was released. I'll argue that 10-15 years from now your average consumer won't give a crap about classic timepieces and a "smartwatch" will be a regular "watch" to these people.

You don't have to wait 10-15 years, your average consumer doesn't give a crap about 'classic timepieces' now. The only people who care about 'classic timepieces' only want to massage their egos.

 

[jimbobb24]

It makes sense to have a slimmer phone,for many ergonomic reasons. It does not make sense to have a Rado-like thin watch. Thin watches are definitely a thing of the past, all the best mechanical watches are thicker than the Apple Watch.
[doublepost=1455899293][/doublepost]

It makes no sense to make a thinner iMac but Apple seems obsessed with that so I don't know what will happen but it's fair to say functionality is not their only considerations.

 

[ChrisCW11]

What this analysis company did is naive and laughable.

First, Economics 101, two numbers cannot define a trend. No analyst worth their salt will make a prediction based on two data points.

Second, comparing a whole GLOBAL market to a smaller regional segment of another market to analyse trends is just plain stupid. The Swiss do not monopolize on quality timepieces; Germany and Japan also make high quality timepieces and China cranks out all those designer branded fashion analog watches. What is the total number of smartwatches sold compared to the total number of analog watches sold globally; probably nothing the Swiss or any other watch marker need to worry about.

Third, compare Apples to Apples, most of those 8.1 million smartwatches are likely between $300 - $500, and even while Apple might have a $10,000 gold plated version, I am sure far more of those 7.9 million Swiss watches sold cost more than your car. I would even go so far to suggest that for every Gold Apple Watch edition sold, a Swiss "worth more than your house" edition watch was sold. The REAL comparison is to find out what the total market value of all those smartwatches sold vs the total market value of the Swiss watches sold? Again nothing that the Swiss watchmakers should be worried about.

Let's all put this in another way. What this Strategy Analytics company did is the same as taking the total GLOBAL sales of all Civics, Corollas, Mazda 3s, Fortes, Elantras and the rest of the entry level compact sedan market and compared it to ONLY the German luxury car market and claimed that because the sale of $50,000+ German cars are lower compared the sales of ALL $15,000 cars then naturally the conclusion is that German luxury car sales are in trouble and the German manufactures should be very worried. This is a completely ignorant rationality.

At the end of the day, nobody in the market for a Porsche 911 passes it over for a Corolla, and nobody in the market for a Rolex is going to pass it over for an Apple Watch. The comparison of smartwatches to Swiss watches is naive and contrived. 20 years from now you will still be able to buy a Swiss analog watch, but 20 years from now Apple Watch will be a footnote on wikipedia.

 

[BarracksSi]

At the end of the day, nobody in the market for a Porsche 911 passes it over for a Corolla, and nobody in the market for a Rolex is going to pass it over for an Apple Watch.

I'd be more tempted to buy a modest silver-dialed Oyster Perpetual if I wasn't already wearing my AW almost all the time.

…, but 20 years from now Apple Watch will be a footnote on wikipedia.

The original "Bondi Blue" iMac is getting close to 20 years gone, but I don't think the iMac platform itself is going to disappear.

 

[zhenya]

At the end of the day, nobody in the market for a Porsche 911 passes it over for a Corolla, and nobody in the market for a Rolex is going to pass it over for an Apple Watch. The comparison of smartwatches to Swiss watches is naive and contrived. 20 years from now you will still be able to buy a Swiss analog watch, but 20 years from now Apple Watch will be a footnote on wikipedia.

They might not for a Corolla, but they might go for a Corvette or S2000 if Porsche was completely ignoring technological advances of the past 20 years.

There will always be a niche for high-end, boutique or 'craftsman' timepieces. But make no mistake, that niche will shrink rather than grow as more people find they already have something on their wrist that does everything their fancy watch does and more. It will make the sale a lot more difficult for the Swiss.

 

[peterdevries]

Well, its not about cars per se... its about obsolete technology being replaced by newer one..

I see you that you don't know a lot about mechanical watches. Nothing in any of the top of the line watches is obsolete. It is high tech and material science at its finest.

Just because something doesn't have electrons running through it, does it mean it is obsolete.

 

[Benjamin Frost]

Three issues with iWatch:
1) 1.2 days battery life needs massive improvement. 1 week minimum.
2) Display must be always on.
3) It is chunky. Needs to be THIN.

Apart from that, the iWatch is second to none.

4) Needs a reason to exist.

 

[zhenya]

I see you that you don't know anything about mechanical watches. Nothing in any of the top of the line watches is obsolete. It is high tech and material science at its finest.

Just because something doesn't have electrons running through it, does it mean it is obsolete.

The same could be said of any high-end car. Porsche could still be making an air-cooled 911 with state of the art design but no electronics, and it would be an awesome car and there would be a market for it. However they, like every major manufacturer, have realized that they can't 'appear' out of date when they are selling state of the art. And appearances are what sell cars. Hell, most supercars can hardly be bought with a manual gearbox anymore. This is the stage the traditional watch industry is in now. They make amazing devices. But they are going to relegated to a niche market once people come to expect more from a watch.

 

[wbaetz]

4) Needs a reason to exist.

An estimated 5.1 million reasons to exist last quarter alone. That's the real story in this article. What happened to all the people here in this forum saying AppleWatch was a failure?

 

[Ted13]

People might purchase an Apple watch instead of a Swiss watch for now, but the Apple watch is essentially a disposable. After 2 years, the battery won't work, a new version will be released with new features, and the overall design will change as fashion trends usually do.

But after dabbling in the 'smart watch' arena, many (not all) people will go back to just wanting a classic timepiece that looks good with casual and formal attire, and isn't the same watch as a 16 year old high school student's.

There is room in the world for both of these types of products and they're not really in competition.

"After 2 years, the battery won't work" - utterly false: yes batteries eventually need to be replaced, but there are 8 year old iPhones still being used with their original battery. To put it another way -- the batteries in my old Swiss Army watches needed to be replaced a heck of a lot more often then those in any of my Apple devices.

More generally that "they're not really in competition" -- you could have said the exact same thing about iPhones vs. our old landline phones, or iPhones vs. our Kodak cameras, or iPhones vs. native calculators, etc. etc. Guess what in each case they absolutely are in competitions. and the old version is dying. I'm not suggesting that all Rolexes will suddenly end up in the garbage bin, but they will end up where the horse & buggy ended up next to cars: strictly only as collector items.

 

[Zwhaler]

That perception has lasted and I even have shared it but let's tear it down. The gen 1 Apple Watch will last. It's like the first iPod: if properly serviced it has lasted a dcade and a half and still works the same.

The same could be said for a normal watch: if properly serviced it will give you the normal funcionality for a long time which is to just give the time.

An Apple Watch will also last bcause if properly serviced it could be like the iPod.

People are saying it won't last because they want new funcionality added and it will have a limit regarding that. But it will have the same funcionality it had when it came out... exactly like the same functionality a normal watch had when bought.

True, I own a first gen iPad (it actually barely can use many apps for a few minutes without crashing) but assuming you are 100% correct, let's be real. Tech changes way too quickly these days for an Apple Watch (first gen no less) to be considered as future proof or long lasting in practice as an old school watch. The Apple Watch in this case shouldn't be looked at as a watch, but rather as a piece of tech. Take the smartphone market. In that case, we're talking 4-5 years at best, which still pales in comparison to Swiss made mechanical watches.

 

[spinedoc77]

That perception has lasted and I even have shared it but let's tear it down. The gen 1 Apple Watch will last. It's like the first iPod: if properly serviced it has lasted a dcade and a half and still works the same.

The same could be said for a normal watch: if properly serviced it will give you the normal funcionality for a long time which is to just give the time.

An Apple Watch will also last bcause if properly serviced it could be like the iPod.

People are saying it won't last because they want new funcionality added and it will have a limit regarding that. But it will have the same funcionality it had when it came out... exactly like the same functionality a normal watch had when bought.

So in other words, people are perfectly able to get by with a watch that just gives you the time and in the same way there will be people who can get by with the funcionality of the first gen apple watch... no matter how much time passes. The limit is only the iPhone App support which I'm guessing will last almost like the iTunes support for the original iPod.

Well I think the Achilles heel to that is the battery. No matter how long you take care of it, eventually it will wear out.

Your comment about Apple support is important as well. Will an unsupported watch have issues with Apple's ecosystem or newer devices? That may impact how long it lasts. I've had my mechanical watch on my wrist for 16+ years nearly every day of my life, through construction projects, the gym, you name it and it still works perfectly, not a blemish on it and ready to go another 150 years.

I'm not disagreeing with your post though. I agree that when the apple watch 2 comes out the apple watch 1 won't magic stop working.

As an aside, I don't mean to defeat myself in argument but I think the whole Swiss made quality is just marketing to sell expensive watches. I've seen cheapie Timex watches and casio watches last for decades. You can get swiss movement for cheap, you can even have it built into your replica watch these days for a fraction of the cost of the real thing. So I keep coming back to the same opinion, expensive mechanical watches are mainly fashion statements.

 

[Abazigal]

I'm still amazed that people are actually still buying the apple watch.

I will most definitely be getting one down the road, just waiting for it to get "good enough" before I spring for one. I am wearing a pebble watch and I am sold on the value of a smartwatch for me.

 

[nando87]

They might not for a Corolla, but they might go for a Corvette or S2000 if Porsche was completely ignoring technological advances of the past 20 years.

There will always be a niche for high-end, boutique or 'craftsman' timepieces. But make no mistake, that niche will shrink rather than grow as more people find they already have something on their wrist that does everything their fancy watch does and more. It will make the sale a lot more difficult for the Swiss.

You look like an Apple Watch target A corvette he says, ahhh... Americans, their burgers, their corvettes and their short sleeved shirts with tie.

 

[Mac 128]

An estimated 5.1 million reasons to exist last quarter alone. That's the real story in this article. What happened to all the people here in this forum saying AppleWatch was a failure?

So, Apple has sold around 13 million watches worldwide over 3 quarters, including massively discounted watches during the holidays.

There are approximately 450 million installed iPhones worldwide. The watch requires the iPhone. So there are approximately 450 million potential customers. That means to date, Apple has sold less than 3% of its potential in 3 months. And of that percentage, at least a third were likely sold for as much as a 30% discount, with Apple partner Colette in Paris selling $10,000 Editions for 50% off.

So while far from a failure, it's certainly not capturing the attention of its target audience. Indeed they have a LONG way to go to even put a dent in their potential customer base. Assuming Apple continues at it's current rate of about 4 million units per quarter, it's going to take 28 years to reach all those potential customers.

Add to that the Watch is not exactly a mystery. It's pretty clear what it does, and how it can be used. Yet it's sold to less than 3% of its worldwide potential in almost a year being on the market. That's not great, and doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence. What I would surmise from that observation is that almost everyone who owns an iPhone took a look at the watch, and over 97% of them passed for now.

Now granted, any other business would proclaim that a success if that were its only product. So again, I agree it's not a failure, but there's absolutely no cause to be smug about it at this point.

About the best thing one can say is that it is significantly beating the competition, but it's hardly redefining the watch market. Assuming even half the installed base of iPhone users wear watches, that means over 218 million iPhone users are wearing something other than an Watch on their wrist. Even if Apple chews away at every one of those watch wearers at 16 million watches a year, it's gonna take a long time before the watch makers are put completely out of business.

 

[BarracksSi]

I'm still amazed that people are actually still buying the apple watch.

I've got a friend with a T-Touch who went through these steps:

1. Why would I need an Watch? I already do so much stuff with my phone.

2. Hmm. Okay, I think yours is pretty cool (after seeing me use mine). I'll get one, but I'll wait until version 2.

3. **** it, I'm gonna get one now.

And he bought the space black SS on the sport band.

This process was mainly driven by seeing me use my AW. I don't think he would've gotten one otherwise.

 

[zhenya]

You look like an Apple Watch target A corvette he says, ahhh... Americans, their burgers, their corvettes and their short sleeved shirts with tie.

Despite owning a Mercedes and a couple of Volvos, I chose the Corvette for the analogy very purposefully as it immediately tells me all I need to know about someone who still makes the mistake of turning up their nose at them. Are they for me? Absolutely not. But I give them the respect they deserve.