How Apple Watch will have 80% of Smartwatch Market in 2016, beating Tag Heuer, Swatch and Movado

“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.