Smartwatch sales are exploding — and Apple is dominating

apple watch tim cook

Smartwatches are a Marmite product: Some people love them, others just don't see the point.

The wearable devices are still small fry compared to smartphones, but the market is slowly warming to them. Case in point: Last quarter, smartwatch sales are triple what they were a year ago.

That's according to new data from research firm Strategy Analytics. It estimates that in Q1 2016, there were 4.2 million global smartwatch shipments — up from 1.3 million in Q1 2015.

Launch of the Apple Watch has helped with adoption considerably. The Cupertino tech giant's wearable came out in April 2015 (the start of Q2), and has reliably dominated sales ever since.

Sales of the Apple Watch dipped a little in Q1 2016, compared to the last quarter of 2015. It snagged 52% of smartwatch sales, down from 63%. But it's to be expected, really — tech product sales always decline over time, and Apple is expected to launch a new Apple Watch in the coming months, which should buoy up sales once again.

And to put it into perspective, Apple is still outselling Samsung more than three times over. The South Korean electronics company is in a very distant second place, selling 0.6 million units to Apple's 2.2 million in Q1 2016.

The full data from Strategy Analytics is below.

smartwatch data q1 2016 apple strategy analytics

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