“Apple Inc. sold 3.6 million Apple Watches in the second quarter, beating some analysts’ expectations and making the company the dominant provider of smart wearable devices after just one quarter of sales, market research firm IDC said in a report,” Peter Burrows reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple sold 66 percent of the 5.5 million smart wearables, defined as devices capable of running third-party applications, said Ramon Llamas, research manager for IDC’s wearables team,” Burrows reports. “Apple hasn’t released sales data for the watch, though it has said sales exceeded those of the iPhone and iPad in their first quarter on the market.”
“Fitbit executives have said they don’t believe their business has been hurt by the Apple Watch because their products focus on consumers who are specifically concerned with health and fitness,” Burrows reports. “Best Buy Co. announced Tuesday that the Apple Watch would be available in 900 stores on Sept. 4 and all 1,047 U.S. big-box stores by the end of the month. The chain began offering models of the watch costing from $349 to $700 about three weeks ago on its websites and at 100 locations.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Fitbit is in a fantasyland. When reality hits them, it will be painful.
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IDC estimates Apple sold 3.6 million Apple Watch units in Q2 – August 27, 2015
Fitbit’s execs are somewhat correct. If you go to their website, most of Fitbit’s “units” are closer to Nike’s defunct FuelBand, not Apple Watch. So most of Fitbit’s existing products actually do not compete with Apple Watch.
Customers who want an Apple Watch are NOT going to buy something from Fitbit. However, the converse is not true. Apple Watch handles the key functionality of Fitbit’s “limited-by-design” products, while doing so much more (limited only by the ongoing imagination of developers). It will be the same as iPod sales diminishing, because Apple’s customers can mostly use their iPhones to perform iPod’s functions.
And I think many of the Fitbit devices sold are the lower-priced models. Nonetheless, Apple is sucking the air out of the room and will, no doubt, prevail in this category, too.
I liked Fitbit in it’s day. When the Apple Watch came out, I simply gave the Fitbit to a friend. Never looked back