When smartwatches like the Apple Watch first burst onto the scene, there were many who were skeptical of its ability to succeed. Some of those skeptics came from the Swiss watch industry, who believed that customers would prefer a regular and more “traditional” watch compared to a smartwatch.
However, fast forward to today, it seems that those critics might have to eat their words because according to new data from Strategy Analytics, they are claiming that Apple shipped an estimated 30.7 million Apple Watches back in 2019, beating out the entire Swiss watch industry as a whole.
The research firm goes on to add that the 30.7 million units shipped in 2019 is an increase of 36% from 2018 where Apple was estimated to have shipped 22.5 million units. As for the Swiss watch industry, they themselves were estimated to have shipped 21.1 million units worldwide in 2019 which is actually a decrease in shipments from 2018 where they shipped 24.2 million units.
That being said, we doubt that traditional watches will ever die out as there is a time and place for either device. Also, in recent times we’ve also seen some Swiss watchmakers hop on board the smartwatch bandwagon with devices of their own which seem to be doing well on their own.
Filed in . Read more about Apple Watch, Smartwatch and Wearable Tech. Source: macrumors