iPhone users really love Apple Watch, survey claims

While not every iPhone user also has a smartwatch, Counterpoint claims 80% of those who do have one choose to use an Apple Watch, helping drive the company’s 56% US market share. Apple, of course, has a plan to increase this.

What Counterpoint claimed about Apple Watch use

While not every iPhone user also has one of these watches, the data shows that one in three iPhone users do also have an Apple Watch. That’s a high attachment rate. The data also shows that 59% of smartwatch users purchased their device in the last year with just 14% owning a watch two or more years old. Around 50% of existing smartwatch users plan to purchase a new one over the next year.

“Our consumer research survey supports a general premise of ours – consumers generally purchase their devices as part of a broader ecosystem of devices and operating systems,” said Research Analyst Matthew Orf.

“Apple and iOS dominate the US smartphone market and iPhone users are more likely to adopt other Apple products due to their superior interoperability. With Apple’s smartphone installed base share surpassing 50%, it has a huge potential market to target with Apple Watches, while other smartwatch brands are stuck fighting for the rest of the pie.”

Tellingly, at least in the US, 77% of the respondents stated that Apple was the most preferred brand for their next smartwatch.

What Apple is planning to boost engagement

At time of writing Apple is expected to put some push behind Apple Watch with plans to introduce on screen widgets and other initiatives to make the Apple Watch even more useful and compelling to an even wider market of people.

Bloomberg claims the watch will support widget stacks, letting users scroll through different slices of bite sized data. This will also open up opportunities for developers to surface useful and actionable insights from their apps on the devices. Apple may also make the Digital Crown the key controller for these widgets.

What Apple will want, of course, is to boost user engagement with Apple Watch as it attempts to push the product forward.

Counterpoint’s data does suggest that Apple has got the mix right with Apple Watch so far. The top three features include health and activity tracking, notifications and messaging and calling – but can widgets extend this field?

Whatever the case smartwatch users seem to be really happy with their devices, with over 98% of users claiming to be either “very”, or “somewhat” satisfied with their devices.

Apple’s sticky brand

Counterpoint Senior Analyst Arushi Chawla said, “It is interesting to note that smartwatch users are overwhelmingly satisfied with their devices. Despite Apple’s gargantuan lead in brand stickiness and its brand popularity, users of other smartwatch brands did not report a significantly lower level of satisfaction with their devices. Sometimes we hear from consumers who do not own a smartwatch that there are no strong use cases for smartwatches, and this hinders adoption.

“But according to our consumer study, smartwatch users are overwhelmingly satisfied with their devices, citing health and fitness tracking, as well as notification access, as central uses. This suggests that there is room to educate consumers on the benefits of smartwatches in everyday life and further drive the adoption of the form factor. OEMs and component players stand to gain if they can educate consumers on how smartwatches can benefit their daily lives.”

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