UPDATED 03:55 EDT / JULY 23 2015

NEWS

Apple sold 4M Apple Watches, takes 75% market share, says report

Apple has not said how many Apple Watches it sold last quarter and analyst estimates vary wildly. Following Apple’s third-quarter earnings results released on Tuesday, we were left guessing at the number of Apple Watches sold.

A new estimate from research firm Strategy Analytics aims to put a finite number on Apple’s smartwatch sales to date. Strategy Analytics believes Apple sold 4 million Apple Watches during the second quarter (Q2) of 2015 and took a 75 percent share of the worldwide smartwatch market.

According to Cliff Raskind from Strategy Analytics, worldwide smartwatch shipments are up 457 percent annually from 1 million units sold in Q2 2014, topping 5.3 million units shipped in Q2 2015. More smartwatches were shipped in Q2 2015 than during all of 2014 when global shipments reached 4.6 million smartwatches.

By comparison, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. shipped an estimated 400,000 smartwatches during Q2 2105, down from 700,000 in the same period last year.

Apple’s entry into the smartwatch market came at a big expense to Samsung. The South Korean company, that claimed 73.6 percent of the worldwide smartwatch market in Q2 2104, now only accounts for 7.5 percent of total smartwatch shipments.

Combined, Apple and Samsung account for 80 percent of all smartwatch shipments.

Interestingly, manufacturers in the “others” category saw an increase in volume, shipping 900,000 smartwatches in Q2 2015 compared to 300,000 in the same period a year ago.

Apple Watch’s sales volume has been a hot topic ever since the wearable went on sale in April. A survey of analysts by Fortune resulted in sales estimates ranging from as low as 2.85 million units to as high as 5.7 million units sold, for an average of 4.07 million.

While Apple did not break out Apple Watch sales in its third quarter earnings report, the company did give us some information to base a reasonable guess on. Revenue from Apple Watch was likely somewhere north of $1 billion from around 2.5 million to 3 million watches sold – much lower than Strategy Analytics’ number, but it is a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said Apple Watch exceed his expectations and revealed that June sales were higher than April and May – making it clear that recent reports of slowing demand for the Watch are wrong.

Image credit: Unsplash | Pixabay

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