Brett Arends, Barrons:
“I have yet to meet anyone who owns an Apple Watch who’s passionate about the product,” he told investors at the Roth Investment Conference in Laguna Beach, Calif., adding that sales of the Apple Watch have mainly just piggybacked off sales of iPhones.
“If you don’t have an Apple phone, you’re not buying an Apple Watch… [and] 80% of the world is Android, not Apple,” he said.
Someone nudge John Gruber. A good candidate for the claim chowder vault of honor.
Me thinks he never left the office…
Cue Balmer declaring, “I like what we’re doing…”
CFO of Apple Watch competitor declares Apple Watch a failure. News at 11.
“If you don’t have an Apple phone, you’re not buying an Apple Watch… [and] 80% of the world is Android, not Apple,”… and yet it is the market leader when it’s designed for only 20% of the market. Fascinating. If I were on the FitBit board and my CFO displayed this much 1) denial or 2) ignorance, I’d be rethinking the market-smarts of my officers.
Sure, but 90% of Android users are simply not interested in buying a wearables of any kind. The majority get the phone for free when they sign a contract and are not the market demographic for $300+ wearable gear. He sounds desperate. I do not have a Apple Watch nor do I think I need one, but that is not to say that it is probably a good product. Far better than anything Fitbit offers. This coming form a Fitbit HR and One user. In my case, the Fitbit is good enough. If I was running around all the time out of my home office, I would probably get the Apple Watch, but I am in front of my 5K iMac all day, so I have little to no use for one.
He is showing symptoms of depriving his brain of oxygen, as a result of holding his breath for “THIS device will finally turn things around” at Fitbit. I think he needs to get out more and consult more Apple Watch owners that aren’t Fitbit employees.
The statement itself is clearly untrue. But it is also true that I haven’t seen the same kinds of enthusiasm for the Watch as for the iPhone. I don’t see people fawning over the Watch and continuing to use it after they’ve had the thing awhile. A week after the iPhones came out, and ten years after iPhones came out, people fawn over their iPhone and use it obsessively. So there is something in that. Doesn’t mean the FitBit guy has found a winning angle though. It might just be that no device is going to have such a reaction as we had with our iPhones.
He may be right that Apple Watches are being bought by iPhone owners and that maintains highes unit market share, but that doesn’t explain Apple Watch’s dominance of unit, revenue and profit market share. The bottom line is that Android buyers buy cheap and not much of that either.
Apple Watch is useful with Strava. Fitbit is not.
I have zero enthusiasm for Fitbit.
Perhaps it’s a part of this era, but must one be totally ecstatic about everything in their sphere of influence, or it totally sucks? It’s a very millenial approach that has been adopted by a much wider range of humanoids. It could just be that Apple Watches provide good utility value and don’t get in the way. After all, how many people are passionate about electricity? It’s there, it’s reliable, it does it’s job, with no fuss or muss.
We’ve been hearing this sort of trash talk since before Ballmer was a glimmer in a used-car salesman’s eye.
I’m surprised the reporter was able to get a discernible quote from inside Zerella’s safe room.
Beat me to it.
If the Apple Watch was such an insignificant or unloved product in the wearable market, Fitbits product wouldn’t be so desperately “inspired” by it. Nor would he even be mentioning it.
Its obvious which product was dissected in the Fitbit R&D dept when they developed this new product. To think they are fooling anybody is disingenuous and arrogant.
Someone has Ballmer-syndrome. Or Blackberry disease.
“If you don’t have an Apple phone, you’re not buying an Apple Watch… [and] 80% of the world is Android, not Apple,” he said.
Meanwhile, Google’s renaming Android Wear, specifically citing that many of its users are in fact on iPhones and not Android devices.
Hmm.
The Apple Watch is selling very well, but at the same time, I don’t think he’s wrong.
I was among the first with an Apple Watch and now own a (greatly, greatly improved) Series 3. I simply don’t find myself recommending it to everyone like say, AirPods. I see the same lukewarm response from everyone I know with an Apple Watch. The Apple Watch, unlike many Apple products, simply doesn’t engender “passionate” feelings or great enthusiasm.
That said, if something with the fit and finish of the Apple Watch doesn’t inspire those feelings, there’s no bloody way a Fitbit equivalent would.
what an effing tool… going the way of RIM and GoPro, I see…
the salaries of these “best and brightest” is an absolute joke, and the board members are all in on the game. they’re a different class of selfish jerks.
after 22 of not wearing a watch, i’ve worm mine nearly every day since day 1. if that’s not passion i don’t know what is.
I think it depends a lot on context.
At my gym, I see something like half the people wearing an Apple Watch. I find it utterly essential there (with fitness tracking and music without having to lug a phone in my pocket).
I’ve found myself wearing mine about 23 hours a day (I keep a charger in the bathroom for when I get up and when I go to bed). I find it utterly invaluable in multiple contexts throughout the day (workout, notifications at work, etc.).
One I didn’t expect but I find perhaps the most useful is using it on my wrist at night; I can put it in theater mode, peek at the time at minimal brightness by rolling the crown up slowly, and have it be a silent alarm that doesn’t bother my wife (who hates noise and light from bedside alarm clocks).
It’s nothing new, and it’s not solely millennial. You’re likely just seeing the millennials whose livelihoods depend upon their adoption of this behavior, required by business owners—or political leadership—of other age groups.
Like Fitbit’s CEO (who’s a long way from the age group you’re assigning), you probably need a wider number of anecdotes to assess. 😉
“Mr. Zerella, I’m free next Tuesday. Let’s do lunch and I’ll take you through it nice and easy.”