Even though the wearable market isn’t as hot as it once used to be, the Apple Watch continues to find room to grow. Apple recently confirmed in its Q1 2018 earnings release that the Apple Watch Series 3 sales were up 100 percent compared to its predecessor last year. New data from market tracker Canalys shows that the Apple Watch lineup had a good year in 2017 as shipments were up 54 percent compared to 2016.
The data shows that the company shipped 18 million units of the Apple Watch last year, a 54 percent improvement compared to 2016. Canalys also points out that the Series 3 has been the real winner here as it accounted for just under 9 million or almost half of Apple Watch’s shipments for the year.
The company’s wearable device exhibited stellar performance in the final quarter of the year with shipments growing by more than 32 percent compared to the same period in the previous year. At 8 million units, it was the highest number ever of Apple Watch shipments in a single quarter, and not just for Apple but for any wearable device vendor.
Analysts believe that this growth was driven by strong demand of the cellular version of the Apple Watch in markets like the United States, Australia, and Japan where all major operators had the smartwatch in stock for the holiday season.
Despite that, Apple’s LTE-compatible smartwatch accounted for 1.6 million of the 8 million units it shipped in the previous quarter, clearly indicating that it’s the non-LTE variant that still reigns supreme.
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