Tomas Chlebek In the last quarter of 2015, 8,1 million smartwatches were shipped worldwide, representing a year-over-year increase of more than 316 percent. According to estimates Strategy Analytics, which latest data she published, the popularity of "wrist computers" is growing fastest in North America, Western Europe and Asia.
The most popular were the Apple Watch by a huge margin, whose sales correspond to 63 percent of the entire smart watch market. In second place was Samsung with 16 percent.
The Swiss makers of traditional mechanical watches, against which everyone else's success is standardly compared, saw sales decline by 5 percent year-on-year. For the first time, fewer were shipped than smartwatches—an estimated 7,9 million units. They are hardly interested in the coming wave of digital technologies.
The only major Swiss watchmaker trying to capture some of the big new audience is TAG Heuer. The one in November introduced the Connected model, at a price of 1 dollars (less than 500 thousand crowns) the most expensive smart watch with Android Wear. But this model also serves more as an introduction to the world of TAG Heuer. The company offers those who buy the Connected model two years later and for an additional fee of $1 to exchange the digital for a mechanical version. TAG Heuer shipped 500 percent of all smartwatches in the last quarter of 1.
