According to a new report, which contradicts the sales report that we saw from British retail giant John Lewis – which had indicated that Fitbit was winning the Christmas wearables top of the pops with an astoundingly high sales spike – indicates that the Apple Watch was the biggest seller in the wearables category on Black Friday 2015. This follows the trend-line prediction that came out of the IBM Watson computers, which had formed their view by indexing the social web and picking out the sentiment of peoples conversations.
Indeed, so popular is the Apple Watch proving to be during this holiday season shopping bonanza, it has now ben predicted by no lesser analyst than Daniel Ives, talking here wit Apple Insider that the device will clear 12 million units by the close of Christmas 15. No less than 50% of this number will happen during this three month Christmas shopping period, keeping in-line with the figures that we have revealed in the past which indicate that 30% of wearable tech sales happen over Christmas.
Apple have historically stayed true to form in not revealing very much at all about the sales numbers pertaining to their watch – see our review of the Apple Sport Watch here – but it had previously been estimated by FBR & Co that sales had reached $1.7B at the end of the devices first 5 months in market. If FBR & Co prediction is right about the Q4 sales estimate, then Apple will have doubled their all time number of sales by the end of this quarter.
In his market briefing, Ives stated that wearable technology is becoming increasingly important to Apple, whose sales numbers are still heavily reliant on their iPhone, as the segment represents a “massive land grab opportunity, which will ultimate create an entirely new ecosystem”
He continued “We continue to view the Apple Watch as a potential door opener for wearable technology across the board, as this next paradigm shift is likely set to take place across the consumer/enterprise landscape,” This is a view that we have long shared here at BurnTech, where we have historically speculated that the Apple watch would act as the “maker” of this market. The brasher start-ups such as Fitbit have performed well, but a area of great fascination during 2016 will be observing the whole Fitbit Vs Apple battle-royale. Its likely that Fitbit will pivot to focus entirely on the fitness space, representing their history and pedigree, disassociating themselves rom the wider smart watch ecosystem which Apple will likely dominate – at least as long as Samsung struggle with their Gear Watch.