Apple Watch is killing the entire Swiss watch industry

The Apple Watch is killing the entire Swiss watch industry. A report by Strategy Analytics reveals that during 2019, Apple Watch sold more units than the entire Swiss watch industry: Apple shifted 30.7 million units, up 36% from the 22.5 million it sold in 2018, while the Swiss watch industry as a whole managed just 21.1 million watches, a decline of 13%.

Enrique Dans for Forbes:

Apple’s reinvention of the wristwatch is not only evident in its impressive sales figures: it can be seen by analyzing its usage dynamics. When somebody acquires an Apple Watch, they typically tell themselves they will wear it sometimes, but remain faithful to their favorite traditional watch. After all, the Swiss industry has been trying for years to get us to see watches as a fashion accessory or collectable. For many watch enthusiasts, a Swiss watch was a powerful status symbol.

But once you have tasted the apple, you’re lost. Experience shows that the Apple Watch is more than something that tells the time, and is instead receives notifications, evaluates your physical activity, shows the weather forecast, tells you if your team has won, and a myriad other things, including whether you are suffering from an arrhythmia. As soon as you start using the Apple Watch, you realize one thing is clear: the rest of your watch collection will live on in a drawer from now on.

MacDailyNews Take: As usual, we told you exactly what would happen years ago:

We do not foresee anyone wanting to take off their Apple Watch in order to wear a “jewelry watch.” Apple Watch is not just a watch to be replaced with another regular watch… Here’s what makers of Swiss or any other watches should do: Push the idea of wearing of two watches, one on each wrist or two on one wrist, into vogue. Because once people start using Apple Watch, they aren’t going to want to leave it at home. Ever. They won’t want to go to dinner parties without their Apple Watch. And that’s bad, bad news for watchmakers not named Apple. Watch and see. – MacDailyNews Take, April 16, 2015