Q4 Smartwatch Shipments Overtook Traditional Swiss Watches, Report Says
Futuresource Consulting estimates 99 million wearable devices were sold globally last year “across all categories,” up 76 percent from 2014, the firm said in a Wednesday report. Sales increased 267 percent to $24 billion, reflecting average selling price increases spurred…
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by momentum in the connected watch category, it said. In the smartwatch segment, Apple “quickly established itself as outright market leader despite being late to market compared to some of the other major brands,” it said. Smartwatches overtook activity trackers as the largest product segment in revenue terms from the previous year, Futuresource said. Q4 was also the first quarter in which smartwatch shipments overtook those of traditional Swiss watches, it said. “Classic high end brands such as Tag Heuer and Breitling and mass consumer watch brands such as Fossil and Guess have already started to introduce connectivity and smart features to their watches in order to embrace changing customer needs and market competition.” Futuresource sees smartwatches as getting “smarter and more capable,” but not at the expense of cannibalizing smartphones, it said. “Other issues like battery life are also improving for smartwatches.”