Apple is not averse to cannibalizing one of the products for another of their products (because it's better for them to do it than for a competitor to do it!).

Apple is not averse to cannibalizing one of the products for another of their products (because it's better for them to do it than for a competitor to do it!). It's hard to imagine a watch form factor replacing many uses of the smartphone, but I could imagine some people who opt for watch + tablet rather than watch + phone. The screen on the watch is just too small for many of the things that people use their phones for. I didn't interpret the article as saying that the market for smartwatches was failing. My read of it was that smartwatches are consolidating around the Apple Watch, given marketshare numbers and what has happened with the competitors so far. IMHO, there's a lot of room for growth and there's no reason to assume that Apple will dominate in marketshare (though if recent history is a guide they may dominate in profit).