Avalon‘s Neil Cybart says his research shows that more than 100 million people around the world now own and wear an Apple Watch. The industry analyst says Apple Watch adoption greatly accelerated in 2020.
Apple’s smartwatch first hit wrists in 2015, Cybart says adoption of Apple’s wearable hasn’t been a constant thing, as 30 million new users purchased an Apple Watch in 2020, coming close to exceeding the purchases from 2015-2017.
As Apple does not announce exact sales numbers for the Apple Watch, Cybart estimated the wearable’s user base by looking at the Watch as a percentage of the iPhone user base. Based on his research, Cybart believes that approximately 10% of iPhone users worldwide wore an Apple Watch by the end of 2020.
Cybart also shared a look at U.S. adoption of the Apple Watch:
Since the U.S. has been an Apple Watch stronghold for years, adoption in the country has trended materially high in comparison to global figures. At the end of 2020, approximately 35% of iPhone users in the U.S. were wearing an Apple Watch. This is a shockingly strong adoption rate that should serve as a wake-up call to Apple competitors interested in the wearables space. Apple Watch turned Fitbit from a household name as the wearables industry leader into a company that will eventually be viewed as an asterisk when the wearables story is retold to future generations.
Cybart says his figures show that Apple Watch is Apple’s fourth-largest installed base behind the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. if the Watch continues at the current sales trajectory, it will surpass the Mac installed base in 2022.
Cybart sees the Apple Watch adoption rate continuing at a high rate, and predicts that just 35% of iPhone users around the world one day wear an Apple Watch the installed base would exceed 350 million people, which is two and a half times higher than the current user base.