Picture: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple Watch shipments dropped nearly 20% yr over yr within the first quarter of 2024. Market analysts blame a few of the decline on Apple being briefly pressured to halt gross sales of its most up-to-date wearables in a patent dispute over blood oxygen monitoring in models bought in america.
AirPods gross sales additionally declined in Q1 2024 however for a unique purpose.
Blame a patent lawsuit for Apple Watch shipments decline
Apple is concerned in a long-running patent dispute with Masimo Corp. and its sibling firm, Cercacor Laboratories. The 2 medical-device makers have satisfied court docket after court docket that the best way the heart beat oximeter contained in the Apple Watch works infringes on their tech.
Apple needed to cease promoting Apple Watch Sequence 9 and Extremely 2 in america late final yr. There have been a number of subsequent begins and stops, however when gross sales resumed for good on January 18, Apple had been pressured to disable blood oxygen monitoring software program within the these models.
And within the first quarter of this yr, Apple Watch shipments declined 19.1% when in comparison with the identical interval of 2023, in line with analysts at IDC. They credited a few of the drop to “a temporary ban on certain watch models.”
The truth that the wearables proceed to be bought within the U.S. with out oxygen monitoring is probably going affecting gross sales, too. The issue will change into vital this autumn when Apple Watch Sequence X will get able to launch.
AirPods and Beats shipments additionally drop
IDC additionally reported on Tuesday that shipments of AirPods and Beats declined 18.8% throughout the quarter. The analysts collectors the decline in these hearables in “the lack of newer AirPods.”
The final new mannequin on this well-liked product line was AirPods Professional 2 in late 2022. The third-generation commonplace AirPods launched in late 2021.
A change is coming, although: a fourth-generation of those really wi-fi earbuds is allegedly on Apple’s 2024 agenda. AirPods Professional 3 aren’t anticipated till subsequent yr, nevertheless.
Apple Watch and AirPods Q1 2024 shipments collectively
Altogether, shipments of Apple Watch and AirPods totaled 20.6 million models within the first three months of the yr, in line with IDC. That’s an 18.9% year-over-year decline.
Nonetheless, it was sufficient to maintain Apple on the prime of the heap available in the market for every type of wearables. It has 18.2% of the worldwide market, near double its subsequent nearest competitor.