Blame Apple? U.S. Watch Sales Drop 11 Pct, Most in 7 Years

The market research company NPD says watch sales in the United States in June dropped 11 percent from the year before, to $375 million. Fred Levin, head of NPD’s luxury practice, told Bloomberg that watches that cost between $50 and $1000 suffered across-the-board declines, with a 24 percent decline in the $100 to $199 range.

Although Levin said that Apple “is going to gain a significant amount of penetration,” the Apple Watch does not sell in the $100-$199 segment. The biggest player there is Fitbit, which is having significant success of its own.

Bloomberg notes that U.S. watch sales increased every month but May in the first half of 2015, for an overall gain of 4.2 percent. May, you’ll recall, is when the Apple Watch first started shipping. NPD tracks about 70 brands’ sales in department stores, chains, and jewelers, but not big-box stores like Walmart or online sales like Amazon.

To put some more perspective on this, Bloomberg estimates that Apple sold about 2 million watches globally in the second quarter. NPD estimates that the entire watch industry sold 927,500 watches in the United States in April.

Last updated by Dan Rosenbaum on February 1, 2017.