At its earnings call, Apple said the Apple Watch grew 50% year-over-year in sales but continued its silence on revealing exact numbers for its wearables. Estimates from Canalys suggest that unit sales almost hit 4 million for Apple Watch in the third quarter.
The analyst says the cellular LTE Apple Watch Series 3 has proved popular, with demand outstripping supply and carriers surprised by the demand for the cellular Watch …
Canalys estimates that about 800,000 of the 3.9 million Apple Watch units sold in the third quarter were the LTE model.
Note that calendar Q3 refers to July, August, and September. The Apple Watch Series 3 was only available from the middle of September. Despite the late launch in the period, a quarter of the total Apple Watches sold were LTE S3 Apple Watch models.
In China, the Apple Watch LTE access is currently disabled by the government. Canalys expects strong demand from Chinese customers once the issue is resolved.
This bodes well for the holiday quarter. Apple Watch has typically been a strong holiday product and demand for the S3 Watch is significantly higher than the S2 was a year ago.
Overall, Canalys believes that Apple was the #1 wearable manufacturer for the quarter including both smartwatches and less-feature-rich smart fitness bands. Xiaomi and Fitbit trailed Apple with 3.6 and 3.5 million units, mostly consisting of fitness bands.
