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Apple Watch Sales Crash 72%, We’re Not Surprised

Kurtz79 10y ago
Is this what is considered as an opinion article, these days ? Two paragraphs of loose one-line sentences with no information whatsoever besides what already comes in the title ? Why is the author not surprised ? It comes from some deeper analysis done at time ?
melling 10y ago
I think it's premature to say smartwatches are done. Apple's new watch was only available for the last two weeks in September, and people knew it was coming. I wrote a brief blog on this yesterday: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/smartwatch-sales-are-tanking/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/smartwatch-sales-are...
FussyZeus 10y ago
Is anyone surprised at this? You have to charge it every day like a phone, except it can't function in it's intended purpose while charging. It's a huge block of watch strapped to your wrist. Honestly they aren't even that pretty, nor fashionable. I was saying this was a dumb fad when they came out, and now with the release of Watch 2 + the upgraded Watch 1, they've given a gigantic middle finger to the early adopters who now have the only option of unloading them on eBay for half what they paid. Also, as any Apple regular customer knows: Never buy Gen 1 of ANYTHING made by Apple. The only watch I've seen that is somewhat compelling is the Pebble series, but even then it's not native integration so the colleague I know who has one constantly has issues with it, and yes it has week long battery life but that's because the screen is a monochrome one that looks like it was pulled from an old flip phone. None of these options are as attractive to me as just pulling my phone out of my pocket.
- soneil 10y ago
  Not surprised at all, but from completely the opposite angle. I have the 1st gen Watch. Love it. Only real complaint was the price - especially as I had to pay the british price because it wasn't on sale here (yet?) But I wasn't expecting sales of the new models to go well either. There hasn't been enough iteration to provide a compelling upgrade for current owners - or a clear enough 'sell' to make a mote of difference to anyone who wasn't convinced by the first models. I don't think it's failing, or that it's going to fail. But I simply don't see it fitting this release cadence. Outside of a very compelling reason to upgrade, I can't see myself upgrading my watch more often than, e.g., a laptop. If I get less than 5 years out of it, I'll be disappointed. I'll be interested to see where it goes from here. It's far, far too early to rely on churn - they really need something that'll convince people who aren't already convinced. And they simply don't have that yet.
noelwelsh 10y ago
I think the analysis in the article is a big simplistic. My own impression is not that the execution of the Apple Watch is flawed, but that the idea simply doesn't deliver enough value to make it worthwhile. A device for controlling my phone on my wrist just doesn't solve a problem I have to the extent I'm willing to pays hundreds of currency units for one. Maybe for some people, but it appears not a sufficient number to make a mass market.
brlewis 10y ago
Disclosure: I work at Fitbit but don't speak for Fitbit. I've often heard predictions that Fitbit was doomed because its special-purpose devices would be subsumed by general-purpose devices the way MP3 players were subsumed by smart phones. My retort has often been, "Yeah, just like Palm Pilot killed iPods". Timing is important. The technology has to reach a certain level before it can have wide consumer appeal. Smart watches today are a niche tech toy, not something everybody wants to use. We're at the iPod stage, not the iPhone stage, in wearable computing.
- jbob2000 10y ago
  You sound like the religious doomsday predictors, who change the date of the doomsday every time their previous prediction comes out false. iPod sales went up year-over-year, "wearables" are going down year-over-year. It's just a silly gimmick!
  - brlewis 10y ago
    In my analogy, fitness trackers are like iPods and "wearables" are a conflation of iPods and Palm Pilots or other PDAs. So for "iPod sales" you might look at the latest quarterly reports from Fitbit and Garmin. https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2016/Fitbit-Reports-587M-Q216-Revenue-003-GAAP-EPS012-Non-GAAP-EPS-and-Confirms-Revenue-and-Profit-Guidance-for-FY16/default.aspx https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-relea... http://www.garmin.com/en-US/company/investors/earnings/ http://www.garmin.com/en-US/company/investors/earnings/ EDIT: Even if you lump all "wearables" into one category, Fitbit's increased sales are enough to offset any smartwatch decrease, so the one fact you included among your vague insults is wrong.
- drinchev 10y ago
  Fitbit is awesome. I use Fitbit Flex 1.0 and Apple Watch in a combo. Fitbit works so well and is so cheap ( 60 Euros ) that I don't care what I do with it and it has an API. Because of the price Apple Watch will never be able to track : 1) My gym workouts ( having 400 Euro thing in the gym where I hit the boxing bag - no way ) 2) My sleep ( I have to charge it every night, so impossible to do that ) 3) My 3 days camping holiday ( Wood, scratches, fire, etc.. ) And anyway look what I did [1] with Fitbit's API & ubersicht [2]. 1: http://imgur.com/z9b3C9A http://imgur.com/z9b3C9A 2: http://tracesof.net/uebersicht/ http://tracesof.net/uebersicht/
cyberferret 10y ago
A short article, lacking in details. Interesting that they can state "72% year-on-year decline" when in fact the Apple Watch has been on sale for only about 18 months. Not yet enough sales data to compare two complete sales years against each other. In any case, this was discussed to death in another Smart Watch thread here on HN a day or so ago. My take on it is that that Smart Watches need way too much 'babying' (i.e. time and conscious energy) to keep them operational at this point in time, that the motivation to go back to 'dumb' devices that don't require so much thinking and planning to keep active is just too strong.
informatimago 10y ago
If they want to address the market of sportsmen, they won't be selling any watch until they provide larger bands! I'm not even a sportsman, (I use my arms only to type on a keyboard), and even the largest bands sold by Apple are too small but to cut the bloodstream in my left hand. Needless to say, I wear it only on rare occasion, it'll serve more as a testing and debugging device than as an actual watch.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Yes - this puzzled me. I've got the Apple Sports Watch (via a credit card rewards thing), and was surprised to see that I had to use the last hole on the band to get it to fasten, and even then it is very tight on my wrist - and I have very small and skinny wrists for a guy. I initially thought they may have shipped me a ladies model by accident, but a quick Google shows that they don't have separate mens and ladies models for the Sports Watch bands?!?
akmarinov 10y ago
That was like two sentences, why bother posting at all?
uslic001 10y ago
I like my Apple Watch more than my Fitbit. The only thing they need to do is improve the battery life.

Is this what is considered as an opinion article, these days ? Two paragraphs of loose one-line sentences with no information whatsoever besides what already comes in the title ? Why is the author not surprised ? It comes from some deeper analysis done at time ?

melling 10y ago

I think it's premature to say smartwatches are done. Apple's new watch was only available for the last two weeks in September, and people knew it was coming. I wrote a brief blog on this yesterday: https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/smartwatch-sales-are-tanking/ https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2016/10/25/smartwatch-sales-are...

FussyZeus 10y ago

Is anyone surprised at this? You have to charge it every day like a phone, except it can't function in it's intended purpose while charging. It's a huge block of watch strapped to your wrist. Honestly they aren't even that pretty, nor fashionable. I was saying this was a dumb fad when they came out, and now with the release of Watch 2 + the upgraded Watch 1, they've given a gigantic middle finger to the early adopters who now have the only option of unloading them on eBay for half what they paid. Also, as any Apple regular customer knows: Never buy Gen 1 of ANYTHING made by Apple. The only watch I've seen that is somewhat compelling is the Pebble series, but even then it's not native integration so the colleague I know who has one constantly has issues with it, and yes it has week long battery life but that's because the screen is a monochrome one that looks like it was pulled from an old flip phone. None of these options are as attractive to me as just pulling my phone out of my pocket.

soneil 10y ago
Not surprised at all, but from completely the opposite angle. I have the 1st gen Watch. Love it. Only real complaint was the price - especially as I had to pay the british price because it wasn't on sale here (yet?) But I wasn't expecting sales of the new models to go well either. There hasn't been enough iteration to provide a compelling upgrade for current owners - or a clear enough 'sell' to make a mote of difference to anyone who wasn't convinced by the first models. I don't think it's failing, or that it's going to fail. But I simply don't see it fitting this release cadence. Outside of a very compelling reason to upgrade, I can't see myself upgrading my watch more often than, e.g., a laptop. If I get less than 5 years out of it, I'll be disappointed. I'll be interested to see where it goes from here. It's far, far too early to rely on churn - they really need something that'll convince people who aren't already convinced. And they simply don't have that yet.

noelwelsh 10y ago

I think the analysis in the article is a big simplistic. My own impression is not that the execution of the Apple Watch is flawed, but that the idea simply doesn't deliver enough value to make it worthwhile. A device for controlling my phone on my wrist just doesn't solve a problem I have to the extent I'm willing to pays hundreds of currency units for one. Maybe for some people, but it appears not a sufficient number to make a mass market.

brlewis 10y ago

Disclosure: I work at Fitbit but don't speak for Fitbit. I've often heard predictions that Fitbit was doomed because its special-purpose devices would be subsumed by general-purpose devices the way MP3 players were subsumed by smart phones. My retort has often been, "Yeah, just like Palm Pilot killed iPods". Timing is important. The technology has to reach a certain level before it can have wide consumer appeal. Smart watches today are a niche tech toy, not something everybody wants to use. We're at the iPod stage, not the iPhone stage, in wearable computing.

jbob2000 10y ago
You sound like the religious doomsday predictors, who change the date of the doomsday every time their previous prediction comes out false. iPod sales went up year-over-year, "wearables" are going down year-over-year. It's just a silly gimmick!
- brlewis 10y ago
  In my analogy, fitness trackers are like iPods and "wearables" are a conflation of iPods and Palm Pilots or other PDAs. So for "iPod sales" you might look at the latest quarterly reports from Fitbit and Garmin. https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-release-details/2016/Fitbit-Reports-587M-Q216-Revenue-003-GAAP-EPS012-Non-GAAP-EPS-and-Confirms-Revenue-and-Profit-Guidance-for-FY16/default.aspx https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-relea... http://www.garmin.com/en-US/company/investors/earnings/ http://www.garmin.com/en-US/company/investors/earnings/ EDIT: Even if you lump all "wearables" into one category, Fitbit's increased sales are enough to offset any smartwatch decrease, so the one fact you included among your vague insults is wrong.
drinchev 10y ago
Fitbit is awesome. I use Fitbit Flex 1.0 and Apple Watch in a combo. Fitbit works so well and is so cheap ( 60 Euros ) that I don't care what I do with it and it has an API. Because of the price Apple Watch will never be able to track : 1) My gym workouts ( having 400 Euro thing in the gym where I hit the boxing bag - no way ) 2) My sleep ( I have to charge it every night, so impossible to do that ) 3) My 3 days camping holiday ( Wood, scratches, fire, etc.. ) And anyway look what I did [1] with Fitbit's API & ubersicht [2]. 1: http://imgur.com/z9b3C9A http://imgur.com/z9b3C9A 2: http://tracesof.net/uebersicht/ http://tracesof.net/uebersicht/

cyberferret 10y ago

A short article, lacking in details. Interesting that they can state "72% year-on-year decline" when in fact the Apple Watch has been on sale for only about 18 months. Not yet enough sales data to compare two complete sales years against each other. In any case, this was discussed to death in another Smart Watch thread here on HN a day or so ago. My take on it is that that Smart Watches need way too much 'babying' (i.e. time and conscious energy) to keep them operational at this point in time, that the motivation to go back to 'dumb' devices that don't require so much thinking and planning to keep active is just too strong.

informatimago 10y ago

If they want to address the market of sportsmen, they won't be selling any watch until they provide larger bands! I'm not even a sportsman, (I use my arms only to type on a keyboard), and even the largest bands sold by Apple are too small but to cut the bloodstream in my left hand. Needless to say, I wear it only on rare occasion, it'll serve more as a testing and debugging device than as an actual watch.

cyberferret 10y ago
Yes - this puzzled me. I've got the Apple Sports Watch (via a credit card rewards thing), and was surprised to see that I had to use the last hole on the band to get it to fasten, and even then it is very tight on my wrist - and I have very small and skinny wrists for a guy. I initially thought they may have shipped me a ladies model by accident, but a quick Google shows that they don't have separate mens and ladies models for the Sports Watch bands?!?

akmarinov 10y ago

That was like two sentences, why bother posting at all?

uslic001 10y ago

I like my Apple Watch more than my Fitbit. The only thing they need to do is improve the battery life.