Apple's (AAPL) New Watch 7 to Boost Wearables Market Share

Apple’s AAPL new Watch Series 7 is available from today. The device, unveiled alongside iPhone 13 at the Sep 14 event, was scheduled for a late fall release primarily due to supply chain issues. Apple started accepting pre-orders for Watch 7 from Oct 8.

Touted as the most durable Apple Watch ever built, the Watch Series 7 is the first Apple Watch to have IP6X certification for resistance to dust, maintains a WR50 water resistance rating and features the strongest front crystal ever (50% thicker compared with Apple Watch Series 6).

Apple introduced the Watch 7 in five new aluminum colors. The device offers significantly more screen area and thinner borders. Apple Watch Series 7 has roughly 20% more screen area than Apple Watch Series 6, along with thinner borders at just 1.7 mm — 40% smaller than those on Series 6.

The Always-On Retina display offers brighter view and is 70% brighter indoors when a user’s wrist is down. The device offers all-day 18-hour battery life on a single charge, and 33% faster charging compared to Apple Watch Series 6.

Apple Watch’s adoption rate continues to grow rapidly, thanks to the company’s endeavor to add healthcare features like electrical heart sensor and ECG app, along with Blood Oxygen sensor and app to its smartwatch. Series 7 focuses more on health with the availability of mindfulness and sleep tracking.

Apple Fitness+, which is fully based on Apple Watch, introduced guided Meditation, a simple way to practice mindfulness anywhere and anytime, and Pilates, a new low-impact, body-conditioning workout type, on Sep 27.

Fitness+ is also set to introduce Workouts to Get Ready for Snow Season. The service will introduce Group Workouts with SharePlay later this fall.

Apple Watch’s expanding user base is helping the company steer-off competition from the likes of Garmin GRMN, Alphabet GOOGL, Xiaomi, Samsung Electronics and Huawei Technologies.

Per an IDC report, Apple led the wearables market in second-quarter 2021 with 28.2% market share, trailed by Xiaomi and Huawei at 10.2% and 8.4%, respectively.

More than 75% of customers who purchased Apple Watch in the fiscal third quarter were first-time customers. Wearables, Home and Accessories sales increased 36% year over year to $8.78 billion and accounted for 10.8% of total sales in third-quarter fiscal 2021.

Moreover, expansion in Fitness+ availability in 15 new countries with the addition of Austria, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, boosts Apple’s competitive position against Peloton PTON in the near term.


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