Smartwatch sales took a 51.6 percent fall internationally in the third quarter of 2016 amid the steep decline of Apple Watch sales prior to the release of its Nike series.
IDC, a market intelligence firm, has reported that the number of smartwatch shipments was down 51.6 percent year on year for the third quarter of 2016. This analysis serves as bad news for majority of the smartwatch manufacturers, most probably excluding Garmin.
The total smartwatch volume was 2.7 million, less than 50 percent from last year's volume. It is especially terrible for Apple since its shipments dropped 71.6 percent this quarter.
Apple remained the overall smartwatch industry leader thanks to its estimated 41.3 percent market shares this quarter, but IDC calculated that the company only shipped around 1.1 million Apple Watch units as compared with last year's 3.9 million units shipped.
To a certain point, this number should be expected because the latest Apple Watch Series 2 only came out almost at the end of the third quarter. Although the drop in sales is still a blow to the company considering its Apple Watch was a huge hype 18 months ago.
From IDC's data, Garmin is the only smartwatch company that did very well from last year. Its sales actually increased by a whopping 324.2 percent for the 2016 third quarter, when it only had 2.3 percent market share last 2015 third quarter. With this, Garmin catapulted to the second highest grossing smartwatch vendor.
Garmin's smartwatches were designed to focus more on fitness and health, the two main areas that buyers look for in a smartwatch. Because of this trend, Apple seemingly refocused its advertising and features of the Apple Watch toward health and fitness and not on fashion.
Why The Decline In Sales?
The analysts behind IDC think that part of the reason is because there is no new hardware present this year.
Pebble and Apple's latest edition of watches did not come for sale until the third quarter was almost over. Plus, Google announced it will be delaying the release of its Android Wear 2.0 until the following year, which forced numerous consumers to wait until then.
IDC Mobile Device Trackers' senior research analyst Jitesh Ubrani bluntly stated that the bigger problem is because justifying the reasons to buy a smartwatch is difficult.
"It has also become evident that at present smartwatches are not for everyone. Having a clear purpose and use case is paramount, hence many vendors are focusing on fitness due to its simplicity."
Using a smartwatch together with a smartphone daily could lead to an underwhelming experience as the latter could provide much usefulness. This is most likely why it still is difficult for most buyers to justify buying another gadget.
