Apple Watch Grows in India; 3.5 Million Units Shipped Globally in Q2

Apple tree shipped 3.5 meg Apple tree Scout units globally in the second quarter of 2018, a 30 per cent more than than in the same menstruation last yr — and India was a surprise improver to the tech giant's listing — a new report said on Friday.

Apple tree Watch shipments to Asia (excluding Cathay) surpassed 250,000 units, with the LTE version bookkeeping for about sixty percent, said Singapore-based market research firm Canalys.

"India is a surprising addition to the listing of countries. Simply this is a good strategy by Airtel and Reliance Jio to retain their loftier-value customers in a bid to minimise churn in a cut-pharynx market place," noted Senior Analyst Jason Low.

Since the launch of the Apple Watch Series 3, the tech company has formed partnerships with telecom operators in Australia, Nihon and Singapore, with Thailand, India and South Korea added in the last quarter.

Apple Watch Grows in India; 3.5 Million Units Shipped Globally in Q2

"Operators in these markets are willing to resell connected devices other than smartphones that tin help them generate extra revenue from data services," Low added.

Global smartwatch shipments reached 10 million units on the dorsum of stellar performances by among others, Fitbit and Garmin, every bit vendors capitalised on the wearables trend and diversified their portfolios to target singled-out customer segments.

The cellular Apple Watch Serial 3 hit the biggest number of smartwatches shipped to Asia in Q2 2018.

"Apple faces a growing threat from competitors, which take started to pass the million quarterly shipments mark," said Research Annotator Vincent Thielke.

Vendors are trying to differentiate their products with advanced center-rate metrics, smart coaching and mapping, and consumers now accept a much wider range of smartwatches to choose from than they did a yr ago.

"Amidst further competition from Samsung and Google, rumoured to be launching Milky way and Pixel watches respectively, Apple needs to piece of work out how to drive refreshes in markets such equally the US, where its penetration into the existing iPhone installed base has started to level off," explained Thielke.