PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Apple CEO Tim Cook has attempted to allay fears that the Watch’s market share has drastically shrunk by making a declaration that the smartwatch’s sales growth it "off the charts" this holiday season.
Emailing Reuters, Cook said: "During the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the product’s history. And as we expected, we’re on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch."
These comments come after research firm IDC reported on Monday that the company sold 1.1 million units of the Apple Watch during the third quarter of 2016, down 71 per cent year-on-year. Cook was quick to refute suggestions that the Watch is slipping in terms of market share, but declined to supply any specific sales figures.
Apple has been fairly coy on details about the Watch’s performance, its first new product range released under Cook. The company has not revealed sales figures in its earnings and has instead thrown it into an ‘other products’ category that includes devices such as the iPod and Apple TV.
It is worth noting in all of this that the IDC report does not account for Watch sales in the holiday season, nor the sales of the updated, Series 2 Watch version, so there is a distinct possibility that the Watch saw a big sales bump in the fourth quarter of the year. With the Watch being a more natural gift than an iPhone or a Mac, the likelihood of this outcome is high.
Apple has rarely kept positive sales figures to itself, so if the results are as positive as Cook says they are it should only be a matter of time before the company announces how many Watches it has sold.
