As the installed base of Apple Watch approaches 100M, with an estimated 35% of US iPhone users wearing one, rivals are yet to make a credible competing device
In a few months, the number of people wearing an Apple Watch will surpass 100 million. While the tech press spent years infatuated …
Above AvalonNeil Cybart
Context & Ripple Effects
This story closes an arc that began with skepticism: in late 2015, Canalys estimated Apple had shipped just seven million Watches, fewer than some projected. Five years later, Above Avalon pegs the installed base near 100 million — with roughly 35% of US iPhone users wearing one — and a follow-up estimate confirmed the 100M user mark was reached around December, with 30 million added in 2020 alone.
The scale is already historic: Apple shipped 30.7M Watches in 2019, outselling the entire Swiss watch industry by unit volume. The competitive puzzle is that none of that growth forced a credible rival into existence — the Watch compounds because it sits inside Apple's iPhone platform.
First-order effects
Rivals competing for wrist real estate now face a base of ~100M users whose device, apps, and health data are already locked to the iPhone ecosystem — every quarter of delay widens the switching cost.
Second-order effects
With the premium segment effectively conceded to Apple, competitor volume shifts down-market — consistent with Counterpoint's later finding that the sub-$100 smartwatch segment grew 547% YoY even as overall market growth trailed Apple's installed-base momentum.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, wearables consolidate into a two-tier industry: one platform vendor monetizing a massive active base through services and upgrades, and a fragmented low-cost tier competing on price — with the wrist becoming another lever of Apple's iPhone lock-in rather than an independent product category.
The trend: Smartwatches are consolidating around the platform gatekeeper that controls the paired phone, leaving rivals to compete only in the low-price tier Apple does not occupy.
Rivals are yet to make any single watch nearly as popular. Nobody really got everyone on the same page to compete against Apple like Android had done previously with smartphones & tablets, or Microsoft with Windows on PCs. https://twitter.com/...
“In a few months, the number of people wearing an Apple Watch will surpass 100 million.” If these estimates are accurate, they're incredible. Coupled with Airpods, Apple has an enormous lead on wearables and is set to dominate smart glasses. https://twitter.com/...
“Despite the hopes of Amazon & Google, people are not using stationary speakers for much else besides listening to music and rudimentary tasks like setting kitchen timers.” https://www.aboveavalon.com/ ...
Swiss watch makers still don't have an answer. Low and Mid-tier Swiss is like the Point and Shoot camera industry's battle vs smartphone cameras a decade ago. Futile attempts to curtail the inevitable. https://twitter.com/...
New @AboveAvalon article: Apple Watch Momentum Is Building https://www.aboveavalon.com/ ... If the Apple Watch is a runaway train, there is no obvious candidate in a position to stop or even slow the train.
According to my estimates, approximately 35% of iPhone users in the U.S. now wear an Apple Watch. This is a shockingly high % for a five-year-old product category, and it says a lot about how Apple's intuition about bringing utility to the wrist was right. https://www.aboveavalon…