Apple beats Switzerland to become world’s largest watchmaker

WHEN smartwatches first arrived in 2014, not everyone was convinced they would stay the course.

Fast forward almost four years, and sales are booming — well, for Apple anyway.

It used to be the case that fashionistas complained smartwatches were too bulky to be stylish, while most other sceptics moaned that they were tethered to smartphones.

But the iPhone maker just smashed an important milestone: beating the Swiss watch industry at its own game.

Sales of the Apple Watch shot up to 18 million in 2017 – that’s a whopping 54 percent increase over 2016, in case you were wondering.

All told, Apple flogged more of its own watches than the entire Swiss watchmaking industry during the last three months of 2017, according to IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo, making it the world’s largest watchmaker for the first time.

Although Apple has kept mum on official sales figures, the release of the newest Apple Watch probably played a hand in helping the company to achieve the historic feat.

Arriving in September, the latest Apple Watch boasts cellular connectivity, meaning it works independently of an iPhone to pick up texts and answer calls, and costs £399.

When it comes to numbers, what we do know is that despite a drop in iPhone sales, Apple raked in a whopping $88.3 billion during the last three months of 2017.

And with the Apple Watch continuing to grow at an astounding rate, the move into wearables may well have been a smart one on Apple’s part.

Source:-thesun