Apple Watch made $1.5 billion more than Rolex last year

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Apple Watch
I wish I could have a flop like the Apple Watch!
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Going back at least as far the iPhone 5c, some Apple products pick up unfair reputations as “flops” — despite the fact that they are selling in quantities that would make other companies (and my Samsung-loving Cult of Android colleague Killian Bell) turn green with envy.

The Apple Watch, which celebrated its first birthday this week, is just such a product. How much of an impact did the Apple Watch make in its debut year? Enough to bring in $1.5 billion more than Rolex did in 2015.

And more than one-quarter of all Swiss watch exports combined for the past year, just to hammer the point home!

While Apple has yet to make its Watch sales public knowledge, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the debut Apple wearable likely brought in around $6 billion in its first year. That’s considerably more than Rolex’s $4.5 billion in total revenue for the equivalent time frame.

As I pointed out yesterday, the Apple Watch also outsold the iPhone in both products’ respective first years by a margin of 2-to-1.

It should be noted that this Rolex vs. Apple comparison doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. For one thing, the revenue brought in by both companies ignores profit margins. While the Apple Watch may have have one of the best profit margins of any Apple product, it likely doesn’t compare all that favorably to Rolex in terms of the actual cost of building its timepieces.

Still, the fact that the Apple Watch is commanding such a sizable piece of the watch industry does serve to underline how successful it’s been in its first year. And underscores how it’s pretty darn far from a flop!

Source: BGR

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