Strategy Analytics, which has a reputation for accurately predicting unit sales of Apple products before official figures are released, thinks that the tech giant sold 4 million Watches in the second quarter of this year.
That would give Apple 75% of the entire smartwatch market estimated at 5 million units in the period from April to June.
Apple has not released figures for Watch sales in its financial report for the second quarter, and other analysts believe demand is not as strong.
The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry says it shipped 13.6 million traditional watches in the first half of 2015 – around 2.5 million per month or 7.5 million per quarter.
Strategic Analytics predicts the overall market for smatwatches has grown by 457% compared to the same quarter in 2014.
“Global smartwatch shipments grew an impressive 457 percent annually from 1.0 million units in Q2 2014 to hit a record 5.3 million in Q2 2015. It was the smartwatch industry’s fastest ever growth rate. Volumes in the second quarter of 2015 were higher than for the whole of last year, when 4.6 million smartwatches shipped globally in 2014,” said Cliff Raskind, director at Strategy Analytics.
Neil Mawston, dxecutive director at Strategy Analytics, added: “We estimate Apple Watch shipped 4.0 million units and captured a dominant 75 percent smartwatch marketshare worldwide in Q2 2015. Apple Watch launched in sixteen major countries and saw decent take-up from iPhone loyalists in the United States and elsewhere. Apple Watch has clearly raised the bar for the global smartwatch industry. The ball is now in the court of rivals, like Samsung, to respond.”
