Apple Watch (MOBHouse Productions)
Apple Watch

Watch out, Apple is coming for your wallet!

Love it or hate it, Apple truly made the smartwatch mainstream with the release of the Apple Watch. It’s almost like every other person on the street is wearing one.

In 2019, Apple has reportedly sold more watches the entire Swiss watch industry. No wonder. 

Apple Watch Activity (MOBHouse Productions)
Am I doing it right? (Image: https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/7twzql/my_apple_watch_activity/)

It’s been a long journey

First released in 2015 (it’s been that long, eh?), the Apple Watch was their first foray into the wearables world. The sales picked up and quickly snowballed into the best selling wearable device, which sold a whopping 4.2 million units in Q2 2015 alone, stomping out competitors like Fitbit.

Apple continued with a generational update every year, with the current generation being the Apple Watch Series 5, which was released in September 2019. Its main competitors – mainly run on the Google’s WearOS, have been held back by Google.

WearOS meme (MOBHouse Productions)
Hi guys, I’m WearOS…

Cooler than Swiss Watches

In the latest research by Strategy Analytics, the Apple Watch outsold the entire Swiss Watch Industry by a large margin in 2019. It is estimated that Apple shipped 30.7 million units of the Apple Watch in 2019. That amounts to a 36% growth from 22.5 million in 2018.

Comparatively, the entire Swiss watch industry (including big names such as Tag Heuer, Tissot, and Swatch), collectively shipped 21.1 million watches in 2019. In comparison to year 2018, it was a 13% drop from 24.2 million.

According to macrumors.com, Apple once beat the Swiss watchmakers in quarterly shipments in 2017. But, this marks the first time that Apple surpasses them in annual shipments. Strategy Analytics also stated that its user-friendly tech, attractive design, and sticky apps have made it ‘wildly popular’ in North America, Western Europe, and Asia.

Apple carrying the fight against the traditional watchmakers. (Image: Strategy Analytics)

The Apple advantage

You might be wondering, how? The Apple ecosystem has been well-known for its simplicity and intuitiveness, or as they call it – “It Just Works”. It is this ecosystem that allows Apple to quickly capture a large market share in a new market segment.

By introducing an user-friendly and familiar experience with the Apple Watch, existing Apple users quickly jumped onto the bandwagon. Apple successfully lifted smartwatches from niche to mainstream and traditional Swiss watchmakers are losing the war.

What do you think? Are you using a smartwatch right now or considering buying one?