Samsung ships over 800,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches since Sept

PanARMENIAN.Net - Samsung said Tuesday, Nov 19, it has shipped more than 800,000 units of the Galaxy Gear smartwatch since its launch in early September, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The South Korean company, which doesn’t break out sales figures for its mobile devices separately, has a habit of occasionally releasing what it believes is a milestone figure for a particular product. But in this case, analysts said the numbers were released more likely to alleviate concerns in the market that sales of the Galaxy Gear have been a disappointment, the Journal notes.

“This is probably just to show that the shipments have reached close to 1 million,” Doh Hyun-woo, an analyst with Mirae Asset Securities said. “Still, the figure only shows us that people are rarely buying this product given that the Galaxy Note [3] smartphones are expected to average 10 million units in sales per month.”

Though smartwatches remain a supplementary device to mobile phones due to the lack of functionality, more companies are jumping into the market with new products, as the category is perceived as the first step to wearable devices.

When the Galaxy Gear was launched in Berlin, the product was met with mixed reviews as some had expected the device to come with fancier hardware and more software features. But technological limitations such as battery life and display flexibility have deterred the product from being introduced as a standalone product, the Journal says.

David Eun, the head of Samsung’s Open Innovation Center speaking to Business Insider called the Gear watch a “small green tomato” that will eventually grow into a big red tomato, which will herald big opportunities for Samsung and other companies in the industry. But he humbly added: “I don’t know if I’d have bought the first one myself,” according to the publication.