It’s hard to believe that the Apple Watch was first announced almost a year ago even though it didn’t go on sale until April of this year. But since the time it’s been available…we actually don’t know how well the Apple Watch is selling.
Apple hasn’t released any official sales numbers, which is a bit odd since they love announcing iPhone sales numbers. Various estimates put Apple Watch sales numbers at 3 million in June. If true, that wouldn’t be bad considering it's an all new product and that the first iPhone took 3 months to sell just one million units.
According to a January 12 report from Juniper Research, Apple claimed 50% of the smartwatch market in 2015 with the Apple Watch. This compared favourably to Android Wear's accumulitive share of 10% between every OEM smartwatch produced, including those from Samsung, Sony, LG, and Motorola! The remaining 40% share is made up by an eclectic bunch of cheaper smartwatch devices using proprietary software solutions, things like the recently launched Razer, or the good old Pebble series which was also updated in 2015.
Despite all of this the smartwatch market remains comparably small when put against other mobile devices. Juniper's research notes state that the smartwatch market is "a category waiting for a market," adding that manufacturers adding more fetures or re-designing aesthetics will likely make little difference.
Overall Apple Watch shipments likely reached 17.1 million units. Apple also has A LOT more apps available for its Apple Watch, some 10,000 to be precise while Google’s Android Wear only has about 4000.
Still, many people have said they are holding off for the second Apple Watch in hopes of better design, better battery life, and, well, just better everything. But it looks like those people are going to have to hold off a little longer. Particularly if Apple makes the Apple Watch 2 A LOT better with improved hardware, better battery life and a similar price tag to the first-generation model.
Apple Watch 2 Specs & Design Changes
How will Apple evolve the Apple Watch in 2016? Like most things, that depends on who you speak to. A lot of reports have claimed the Apple Watch 2 will be more of an “s” update than complete overhaul; a new processor, battery and thinner display have all been mentioned. Sadly, however, it seems Apple is not changing the display shape this year — at least according to Gene Munster. Nor is it introducing a modem so the Apple Watch can function without being paired to an iPhone
Apple apparently initially ordered 6 million Apple Watch units for the December quarter of 2015 but has since then scaled back production to 4 million following softer than expected sales. Apple has yet to officially comment on exact sales of its first wearable but industry watchers suspect the Apple Watch has out-sold everything else in the wearable space by quite a considerable margin.
Apple Watch 2: CPU & RAM
Apple often drags its feet over unnecessary updates to memory, so we don’t expect the Apple Watch 2 to feature anymore than its predecessor. Where Apple could make some improvements, though, is the Apple Watch 2’s chipset which will likely be a more efficient 14nm CPU, potentially called the Apple S2 chip, and introduce some much needed improvements to power management and battery efficiency.
Apple Watch 2 Production
According to reports on January 14, the Apple Watch 2 may be kicked into production in China this very month - January 2016. The word comes via Chinese sources speaking to local news outlet ctee.com, which also allege that the Apple Watch 2 will be outed officially at an event in March alongside the compact iPhone 6c/7c - the rumoured iPhone model with a 4in display. However, it's thought the device would not land in retail stores until April. Apple's manufacturing partner has already been confirmed as Quanta.
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