The latest figures by a market research firm shows that the Apple Watch continues to lead the global smartwatch market even though shipments of both the Series 1 and Series 2 watches have been slim. The numbers show that the smartwatch market is still have to deal with low demand even though some great new smartwatches have been launched recently. Despite that, the Apple Watch remains on top of the list.
Market research firm IDC reports that in the third quarter of this year, smartwatch makers shipped 2.7 million units combined with Apple accounting for 41.3 percent as it alone shipped 1.1 million units.
The fruit company is followed by Garmin in second place as it shipping 0.6 million units during this period while Samsung came third with 0.4 million units shipped. It merits mentioning here that Samsung’s latest smartwatch – the Gear S3 – was only announced in the third quarter and it hasn’t been released yet.
IDC explains that low growth persisted in the third quarter because Google’s decision to delay Android Wear 2.0 may have forced OEMs to push their new Android Wear smartwatches to 2017 while Apple’s new watchOS update didn’t arrive before the end of September. Collectively, these issues left customers to pick older smartwatches that they may not necessarily wanted to spend money on.
The numbers might be a bit better in the fourth quarter of this year as the Gear S3 will play its part to grow the smartwatch market, while supply will gradually ease up for the Apple Watch as well in due time.
