Apple Watch Shipments Could Reach 15 Million in 2017

[Mike MA]

With maybe just some minor design tweaks on top they even might sell one more.

 

[Karma*Police]

Shipments are Pretty much impressive. Cracks me up how some call it a flop.

Yep and to think the media made such a huge deal out of Echo which as of last year was estimated to have sold only 10 million units... and at less than half the price. Now that's what you call fake news.

 

[christian_koehler]

There is still a market for more spicialized, more advanced, more expensive fitness devices.
If you are into Marathon or even Iron Man then something like a Garmin Fenix is far more suitable than an Apple watch.
But I don't think Apple even tries to compete here, the target audience is much too small, obviously.

It's clear that the market for cheap, dedicated fitness trackers is imploding. And to think there are actually people here who think that Apple should compete with Xiaomi and Fitbit and release cheap fitness trackers which generate next to no profit.

 

[I7guy]

While relatively few Watch-capable iPhone owners are getting one, current sales are not bad at about 5% of iPhone buyers. Very similar to Apple Pay adoption.

(Although it's not like iPhone owners have any real choice when it comes to a fully compatible watch... Apple has made sure of that by doing what Microsoft used to do: keep the tightest integration APIs to themselves.)

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The bigger question to me is: how many end up in a drawer somewhere? Historically speaking, about half of smartwatches end up not being used after about six months. People forget to charge them, bring a charger, etc, and eventually fall out of the habit.

I'd love to see a survey to find out if Apple has beat the normal odds on long term user adoption.

My Fitbit surge is now 2 years and 5 months old and still going strong and is on my wrist at least 6 out of 7 days a week. My son wears his first gen AW as he would a wrist-watch. And without exception everyone I know with an AW still wears theirs. While that is a small sample, anecdotally it shows in my circle people do not throw their AW in a drawer after six months.

 

[xDKP]

There is still a market for more spicialized, more advanced, more expensive fitness devices.
If you are into Marathon or even Iron Man then something like a Garmin Fenix is far more suitable than an Apple watch.
But I don't think Apple even tries to compete here, the target audience is much too small, obviously.

Ironman: Yes
Marathon: don’t agree - I’m a avid runner myself and LOVE my Apple Watch. To be able to track my daily activity, quickly switch strap and go for a 10k with music on my AirPods is just killer. It’s that awesome and yes I ran with mine this may for my fourth marathon - did have my iPhone in a flip belt to let my family track me via GPS and send some encouraging texts but didn’t really need to