Apple is continuing to use its dominance of the technology world to promote its cause to own the watch market as well.
The Cupertino company does not provide a breakdown of its sales by product lines, but Canalys, a respected Singapore based analyst firm, says that Apple sold 8 million smartwatches in the fourth quarter of 2017.
If the average price paid was around $400, sales at retail would have totalled $3.2 billion in a single quarter.
Rolex, the largest traditional watchmaker in the world, is thought to generate annual sales of around $5 billion, or close to $8 billion at retail.
Since its release on September 22 of last year, the Apple Watch Series 3 is thought to have sold 9 million units world-wide.
Overall sales of Apple Watches in 2017 exceeded 18 million units, a rise of 54% over 2016.
