For the first time, the sale of smartwatches has been higher than the sale of Swiss watches, with the smartwatch sales reaching 8.1 million to the Swiss watches 7.9 million. This happened at the end of 2015 according to a report produced by Strategy Analytics.
As may be expected, Samsung and Apple are leading the way, with Samsung accounting for 3.1 million watches or 16% of sales. Apple is well ahead with 83% of sales equating to 5.1 million watches.
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All in all, there has been a 316% increase in sales from the 4th quarter 2014 to the 4th quarter 2015. As Apple only released their watch in April 2015, this is one of the most significant reasons for the rise in sales. Pebble and Android now no longer have the market to themselves.
It was also noted in the report that over the same period, Swiss watch shipments fell by a little over 5% and companies such as Tag Heuer only provided 1% of the smart watches sold.
Neil Mawston the executive director of Strategy Analytics commented that there has not been a quick reaction from Swiss watchmakers when it comes to smart watches. They are ignoring the rise in smart watches and are lagging well behind Samsung and Apple. Android users are following the Apple users example, and figures can be seen on the chart below.