Apple Watch Shipments in Q4 2017 Surpassed Sales of Entire Swiss Watch Industry: IDC

While Apple is already taking on the army of Android smartphones, it has now been reported that the Tim Cook-led company outsold the entire Swiss watch industry in the last quarter - shipping more units of its smartwatch, the Apple Watch. Apple CEO Tim Cook during the earnings call earlier this month mentioned that the last quarter was the "best quarter ever" for the Apple Watch with over 50 percent quarterly growth in revenue and units in a row. The executive didn't reveal any shipment numbers, though.

The latest report by Canalys claims Apple Watch shipments in Q4 2017 grew over 32 percent from the same quarter the previous year, up to 8 million units. Canalys said this was the highest ever number of shipments in a single quarter, not just for Apple, but for any wearable vendor.

Annual shipments reached the 18 million mark in overall 2017, an increase of 54 percent compared to the previous year. "Watch Series 3 is the fastest-selling LTE wearable on the market, with shipments doubling quarter on quarter to reach 1.6 million," Vincent Thielke, Research Analyst at Canalys, said in a statement.

As for the claim of Apple Watch shipments exceeding total Swiss watch industry sales in Q4 2017, IDC Research Director and Industry Analyst and Speaker Francisco Jeronimo in a recent tweet stated, "For the first time, Apple shipped more Apple Watches in 4Q2017, than the entire Swiss Watch Industry shipped watches! Apple is the biggest watch maker in the world."

Notably, Apple hasn't so far revealed any numbers when it comes to Apple Watch shipments. Cook's statement during the earnings call, however, highlighted the growth of Apple Watch. He also specified the difference between the sales of the Apple Watch Series 3 and Apple Watch Series 2. "Sales of Apple Watch Series 3 models were more than twice the volume of Series 2 a year ago," the executive had said while reporting the first quarter results to investors.