It's on fire. It's unstoppable. It's a force that tramples its rival to the ground. It's the latest gadget to hit the market in an incredible pace. It's the Apple Watch.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimates that Apple's debut smartwatch has sold more than 2.3 million units since preorders opened, MacRumors reports. The device doesn't actually start making its way to customers until 24 April at the earliest, but Kuo believes that more than 2 million people globally have coughed up to get their hands on the device.
Apple hasn't released any sales data on Apple Watch sales, and it most likely won't until the company's quarterly earnings report. But this 2.3 million figure echoes what others have estimated — the research company Slice believes there were about 1 million US preorders on launch day, for example.
Ming-Chi Kuo has a good track record on Apple: He was spot on with his predictions about the iPhone 5S, for example.
If Kuo's figures are correct, Apple has — in a stroke — cornered the entire smartwatch market.
The Apple Watch's strong sales are bad news for Google and its Android Wear smartwatch operating system OS. According to Canalys, devices using Android Wear sold 720,000 units in 2014. Slice's figures suggested Apple was able to easily breeze past this figure in a single day. In doing so, Apple took away Google's one historical advantage, which Business Insider explained in a previous story:
The iPhone has always — with some truth — been considered the "rich man's phone." Apple customers tend to be better off than Android users and spend more on apps and in-app purchases. Accordingly, ad rates on iOS, Apple's operating system, are higher than on Google's OS.
This means that iOS is, at least on paper, the more lucrative platform to develop for. But many developers still choose to go "Android first." Why? Because what Android customers lack in purchasing power (on average), they make up for in sheer numbers. In 2014, Android manufacturers shipped a staggering 1 billion smartphones. That's a milestone that will take Apple years to reach — in the same period, despite having the most profitable quarter of any company ever, the Cupertino company had (relatively) paltry sales of 192.7 million.
This truly massive reach is what makes Android such a compelling platform for developers.
But now, the opposite is true — Apple has the bigger platform (by a massive margin), while Google is the underdog. But unlike Apple, Google doesn't have the wealthy user base to encourage developers to prioritise developing for its OS.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo estimates that Apple's debut smartwatch has sold more than 2.3 million units since preorders opened, MacRumors reports. The device doesn't actually start making its way to customers until 24 April at the earliest, but Kuo believes that more than 2 million people globally have coughed up to get their hands on the device.
Apple hasn't released any sales data on Apple Watch sales, and it most likely won't until the company's quarterly earnings report. But this 2.3 million figure echoes what others have estimated — the research company Slice believes there were about 1 million US preorders on launch day, for example.
Ming-Chi Kuo has a good track record on Apple: He was spot on with his predictions about the iPhone 5S, for example.
If Kuo's figures are correct, Apple has — in a stroke — cornered the entire smartwatch market.
The Apple Watch's strong sales are bad news for Google and its Android Wear smartwatch operating system OS. According to Canalys, devices using Android Wear sold 720,000 units in 2014. Slice's figures suggested Apple was able to easily breeze past this figure in a single day. In doing so, Apple took away Google's one historical advantage, which Business Insider explained in a previous story:
The iPhone has always — with some truth — been considered the "rich man's phone." Apple customers tend to be better off than Android users and spend more on apps and in-app purchases. Accordingly, ad rates on iOS, Apple's operating system, are higher than on Google's OS.
This means that iOS is, at least on paper, the more lucrative platform to develop for. But many developers still choose to go "Android first." Why? Because what Android customers lack in purchasing power (on average), they make up for in sheer numbers. In 2014, Android manufacturers shipped a staggering 1 billion smartphones. That's a milestone that will take Apple years to reach — in the same period, despite having the most profitable quarter of any company ever, the Cupertino company had (relatively) paltry sales of 192.7 million.
This truly massive reach is what makes Android such a compelling platform for developers.
But now, the opposite is true — Apple has the bigger platform (by a massive margin), while Google is the underdog. But unlike Apple, Google doesn't have the wealthy user base to encourage developers to prioritise developing for its OS.
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