“The
Swiss watch industry has been very slow to react to the development of
smartwatches. The Swiss watch industry has been sticking its head in the sand
and hoping smartwatches will go away”
Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, Neil Mawston,
commenting on the trend of smartwatches beating the Swiss Watchmakers
Smartwatches
are finally living up to their full potential to kill the Swiss watchmakers as
noted in the article “Smartwatches
push ahead of Swiss watches in popularity stakes, data shows”, published
February 19, 2016 by Trevor Mogg, Digitaltrends.
People
reading this, queue the song I Against I by Mos Def.
According
to analyst Strategy Analytics, Smartwatch sales are outpacing the sales of
Swiss watchmakers as noted in the article “Smartwatches
now more popular than Swiss watches”, published February 18, 2016 by Steven
Musil, CNET News.
The
Fourth Quarter of 2015 saw shipments of smartwatches rise dramatically:
1. 316%
increase for smartwatches
2. 5%
decline for Swiss Watches
This
means that the trend of US Watch makers being beaten by the Apple Watch back in
August 2015 as recorded in my blog article
entitled “U.S.
wristwatch sales in June 2015 dip due to Apple Watch - Why Apple Watch heralds
Armageddon for U.S. and Swiss Watchmakers” is now affecting the Swiss
watchmakers.
So
what are the Swiss Watchmakers doing in response?
Swiss Watch Makers blissfully ignorant -
Demise of Mechanical Watches rapidly approaching
So
far the Swiss Watch maker such as Tag Heuer, has barely responded to the
smartwatch threat.
They’ve
launched only the a single smartwatch, the US$1500 TAG Heuer Connected Watch
against the coming armada of smartwatches in November 2015 as noted in my MICO Wars blog article
entitled “US$1500
TAG Heuer Connected Watch is worth its weight in precious Metals”.
According
to another analyst Gartner, their problems are set to multiply.
2015
sales of smartwatches segment of the wearables market points to a booming
smartwatch market in 2016 and 2017 as noted in “Gartner Says Worldwide
Wearable Devices Sales to Grow 18.4 Percent in 2016”, published February 2,
2016, Gartner.
Take
a look at the table below for wearables.
Gartner's projection for smartwatch sales can
be read as follows:
1. 30
million in all of 2015
2. 50
million projected in 2016
3. 66.7
million projected in 2017
Leading
the fray is the Apple Watch and an armada of Android Wear smartwatches as noted
in the article “Smartwatches
push ahead of Swiss watches in popularity stakes, data shows”, published
February 19, 2016 by Trevor Mogg, Digitaltrends.
To
their credit, Mavado has also responded to the Apple Watch threat with their
high- Movado Motion and Bold Motion line of smartwatches made using Android
Wear back in November 2015 as noted in “Luxury
watchmaker Movado unveils Movado Motion and Bold Motion smartwatches”,
published November 16, 2015 By Kyle Wiggers, Digitaltrends.
Also, despite Apple is still yet to have
Apple Pay integrated into the Apple Watch in China, something that another
Swiss Watch maker, Swatch has managed to do.
They
had had launch the Swatch Bellamy in November 2015 in China that’s capable of
doing VISA contactless payments in China as noted in the article “You
can make Visa contactless payments using the new Swatch Bellamy watch”,
published November 30, 2015 By Robert Nazarian, DigitalTrends.
In so doing, Swatch fulfilled the prophecy of
author Edward Bellamy, who in 1888 wrote about a future where payments would be
made with debit-style cards rather than cash.
Still
despite these innovations, they’re yet to put out multiple dedicated series of
smartwatches to address the coming smartwatch threat. The Swiss Watch makers
demise is rapidly approaching and they do not even know it!
Apple Watch is now 40% of smartwatch
Market – Apple Watch looking to do well in 2016
The
Apple Watch has sold some 5.1 million units in the Fourth Quarter of 2015 as
reported in the article “Apple
Watch sales hit 5.1M during Q4 2015, pushing smartwatches ahead of Swiss watch
for first time”, published February 19 2016 by Chance Miller, 9 to 5 Mac.
They'd
been estimated by FBR & Co. analyst Daniel Ives to have sold some 12
million for all of 2015 as pointer out in my blog article
entitled “How
12 million Apple Watch in 2015 needs Hydrogen Fuel Cells to beat Huawei,
Fitbit, Xiaomi, Garmin and Tag Heuer”.
That's
basically 40% of the total smartwatch market after hands on appointment based
start in April 2015 as noted in my blog article
entitled “Apple
Watch Appointment Fittings coming Friday April 10th 2015 - Why Apple
Appointments sets trend for How to sell a Wearable”.
Apple
will almost certain double those sales number in 2016!
Apple and Hydrogen Fuel Cells - Swiss
Movement obsolete by 2025
Now
almost a year later, this strategy has proven to be the best.
Appointments
gave their product that personal touch and ensured the best fit for customers
as pointed out in my Geezam blog article
entitled “Apple’s
Appointment hands-on Approach is why Apple Watch succeeded”.
This
time around, there is the possibility that Apple might introduce a hydrogen
Fuel cell to make their smartwatch last for months and days instead of 2 days
as predicted in my blog article
entitled “How
12 million Apple Watch in 2015 needs Hydrogen Fuel Cells to beat Huawei,
Fitbit, Xiaomi, Garmin and Tag Heuer”.
Combined
with the ratification of the eSIM which will make smartphones smaller as noted
in my blog
article entitled “How
GSMA's eSIM heralds SIM-Less Smartwatches from Samsung, LG, Microsoft and
Huawei”, expect the Apple Watch to expand their dominance of the smartwatch
world, killing both Android wear and the Swiss Watch maker in one blow.
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