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Smartwatch Shipments Overtake Swiss Watches for ‘First Time Ever’
Feb 23, 2016 10:32 AM
By Rapaport News
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RAPAPORT... Global smartwatch shipments
outnumbered those of Swiss watches for the first time ever in the final quarter
of 2015 as the market for the electronic timepieces soared.
Shipments of smartwatches increased more than fourfold to 8.1 million
units in the three months to December, while Swiss watch shipments declined 4.8
percent to 7.9 million units, according to research and consulting firm
Strategy Analytics.
Smartwatch sales are growing fast in
North America, Western Europe and Asia, with the Apple watch capturing 63
percent of the global market during the quarter, according to the research.
“The Swiss watch industry has been very slow to react to the development
of smartwatches,” Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, said
in a statement February 18.
“The Swiss watch industry
has been sticking its head in the sand and hoping smartwatches will go away.
Swiss brands, like Tag Heuer, accounted for a tiny 1 percent of all
smartwatches shipped globally during the fourth quarter, and they are a long way
behind Apple, Samsung and other leaders in the high-growth smartwatch
category.”
Tag Heuer launched
its smartwatch in 2015 in partnership with Google and Intel.
The news comes on the back of a torrid 2015 for the Swiss
watch industry, with the value of timepieces exports from the country
decreasing 3.3 percent over the previous year and shipments to its biggest
trade partner, Hong Kong, sliding 23 percent. A 33-percent
decline in the value of Swiss watch exports to Hong Kong in January was the
12th consecutive month of declines, according to the Federation of the Swiss
Watch Industry.
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Tags:
apple, Rapaport News, smartwatches, Swiss watch exports, Swiss watches, Switzerland, technology, watches
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