Apple helps push US watch sales to biggest drop in seven years

The sales of the Apple watch have been very disappointing in recent times largely because of its high price. Cook stated that he thought that the Apple Watch would be one of the top gifts for the holiday season.

NPD luxury division head Frederick Levin pointed out that retailers’ watch sales were at $375 million in June 2015, 11 percent lower year-over-year than June 2014’s data.

U.S. watch sales saw their biggest drop in seven years in June following the debut of the Apple Watch, according to new data out from NPD Group. As for luxury watches, unit sales were down 14 percent year-over-year, making this the biggest decline on record since 2008.

“The Apple Watch is going to gain a significant amount of penetration”, Levin told Bloomberg.

The affordable price and innovative characteristics of the new Swatch variants could make it more appealing to those who had been skeptical about buying a luxury-brand, fashion watch or an Apple watch.

NPD’s analytics covered approximately 70 traditional watch brands through national retail chains, department stores, and independent sellers, but not company-owned boutiques, supermarket chains, or online retailers.

“In the short term, brands at accessible price points are going to have to think very seriously,” he said. The first-half increase was 4.2 percent. However, that figure is large compared to traditional watch sales, which were under 1 million for June.

There are different variants of the Apple wristwatch, however, i.e. – the classic version, starting at $549, the sport version, which is cheaper ($349 to $399), and then there’s the most expensive edition that would make you spend between $10.000 and $12.000. The largest drop in watch sales was for watches that cost between $100 to $149.99. In that report we noted that watches have always been great gifts during the holiday season and that by fluke or design Apple could actually pull off a historic quarter for the Apple Watch and stun its many critics.