The value of North America’s wearable band market reached US$2.0 billion in Q2 2019, with shipments up 38% at 7.7 million units. Driven by booming smartwatch sales, North America remains the world’s most valuable wearable band market, despite being second to Greater China in terms of unit sales. In Q2 2019, more than 60% of Apple’s 4.7 million global Watch shipments were into North America. Fitbit came second overall, with shipments up 18% thanks to it pushing more basic bands into the channel, but it failed to ship as many smartwatches as in Q2 last year.
Fitbit’s attempt with the Versa Lite did not fare well. “There is certainly demand for affordable smartwatches with strong health and other intelligent features,” added Thielke, “but Fitbit’s misstep with the Versa Lite shows that consumers will shun overly pared-down smartwatches if they are not appropriately targeted, and especially when it’s obvious they are losing functionality,” added Thielke. Cellular connectivity and actionable health insights are key catalysts for additional growth in the wearable band market. “Vendors are racing to announce LTE connectivity for their smartwatches,” said Canalys Senior Analyst Jason Low, “and it is becoming increasingly difficult to challenge Apple, which has been laying robust groundwork for cellular-connected devices. Apple is poised to reinforce its leading position by including aggregated health data, which can reveal new trends and insights, both for consumers and the broader healthcare ecosystem.”
MacDailyNews Take: Obviously, Apple Watch is not a cheapo “wearable band” making Apple’s dominant position even more impressive!
So basically there really is no market. There is only the AppleWatch, and a few wannabes. Shouldn’t the ear buds be considered wearables?
None of the others are even making a profit, no OS no can do.
It’s anecdotal, but in my small town I see more and more people wearing Watch every day. The number has increased steadily over the past couple years. But I still get an occasional “Oh cool I’ve never seen that before.” When I use Pay. But there are also more retailers whe take Pay now
It is almost wrong to call AW a watch, almost like the iPhone is misnamed because so many people never make or take phone calls.
I do check the time, but I wouldn’t wear a watch just for that. I value the AW for so many other things. Even though I’ve had three of them I’m just sort of settling in to how I want to use it for my life.
I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t see WATCH Series 5 announced September 10.