Apple’s Watch celebrates 12 months of bigger than expected sales during which Apple sold twice as many watches as it did iPhones in its debut year.
The anniversary comes just two days before Apple releases its quarterly earnings with the watch’s performance at the centre of analysts’ attentions.
With iPhone and iPad sales slowing the watch is seen as critical to Apple’s future market share against its main rival Samsung and a test of its ability to innovate under CEO Tim Cook.
Apple doesn’t disclose sales figures but analysts estimate about 12 million Watches were sold in year one. At an estimated average price of US$500, that’s a $6 billion business – three times the annual revenue of competing activity tracker Fitbit.
Researcher IDC estimates Apple’s Watch accounted for about 61 percent of global smartwatch sales last year.