Mumbai: With the shipment of over 2.8 million units worldwide, Apple has clearly emerged as a leader in the smart wearable space. However, the channel is facing a major challenge of the unsold inventory of previous versions of smart watches that are refraining channel partners to lift the new stock, analyst firm Canalys has claimed.
The research firm said that Q4 performance will be key to the long-term prospects of the new Watch models.”While the new models are selling well, there are still unsold first-generation Apple Watches in the channel. Q4 performance will be key to better assessing the long-term prospects of the improved Watch models. Apple needs to make a strong marketing push during the holiday shopping season, especially to highlight new and compelling apps for its platform”, said Canalys analyst Daniel Matte.
“Apple needs to make a strong marketing push during the holiday shopping season, especially to highlight new and compelling apps for its platform,” he said.
Worldwide smartwatch shipments passed 6.1 million in Q3 2016, a 60 per cent increase year on year. Apple, which recently released new Series 1 and Series 2 Apple Watch models, cornered the other brands giving an competitive edge to the brand in the wearable space. The vendor shipped the most smartwatches in Q3 with 2.8 million units, making up 45.6 per cent of global shipments. Canalys attributed this to the launch of the vendor’s recently launched new offerings towards the end of the quarter.
Apple’s renewed focus on fitness functionality puts it in more direct competition with Fitbit, while the addition of GPS by Apple and other vendors now poses a big threat to traditional GPS watches and fitness trackers, Calalys said.
The firm also warned that slowing iPhone momentum has affected consumer interest in Apple’s smartwatch, and the company needs to boost sales of the device outside of the US, especially in China, where smartwatch sales grew 42 percent year on year.
While Apple surge the smart wearable race, Samsung came in second, contributing 18.3 per cent of the total shipments with over 1.1 million watches. Fitbit had strong growth in EMEA and the US, but struggled in Asia, accounting for 17.2 per cent of watches shipped worldwide.
According to Canalys, shipments from Huawei, Lenovo and LG all fell from a lack of product refreshes.
The market for basic bands grew 18 per cent sequentially to 11.5 million shipments in Q3. Overall wearable band shipments – including smartwatches – grew 31 per cent year on year, reaching 17.6 million.