Apple Watch sets new US record, now owned by 30% of iPhone users

New research claims that the Apple Watch has achieved its highest half-year "attach rate," or the percentage of iPhone users who also have an active Watch.

Apple Watch has repeatedly dominated the whole smartwatch industry, having exceeded 100 million active users in Q2 2021.

Now while Apple Watch has seen a lot of variation quarter by quarter, Counterpoint Research says that its half-year result for H1 2022 in North America is its highest attach rate ever. That's the proportion of iPhone users who have an Apple Watch attached.

"Apple Watch reached its highest attach rate in a first half yet in North America, hitting 30%, up from 10% in 2015," a Counterpoint spokesperson told AppleInsider. "Apple Watch revenues compared to iPhone revenues in North America have also been on the rise as Apple Watch becomes more popular."

While the H1 figure is 30%, Counterpoint's full report shows more variation in the quarterly breakdown. For the most recent quarter, Q2 2022, Apple Watch's attach rate was 29% — where for Q1 2022, it was 36%.

Back in Q4, 2020, Counterpoint says it reached as high as 40% attach rate for the quarter. Apple's closest competitor, Samsung, managed 14% in Q3 2021, but in the current quarter is on a 9% attach rate.

The attach rate fluctuates through the year as, for example, new iPhones are released and buyers may not immediately elect to buy an Apple Watch as well.

"While Apple gains a trickle of customers from the Android ecosystem every year, its key smartphone markets have reached or are near saturation," says Counterpoint Research. "This places Apple Watch at the center of Apple's hardware strategy as the company looks for top-line revenue growth."

27 Comments

red oak 1104 comments · 13 Years

About 2 years ago

A better way to analyze attach rates is using installed bases, not quarterly sales. People buy iPhones and Watches on different timetables

Using those metrics, the attach rate is approx:

150 million Watches / 1.1 billion iPhones = 13.6%

iOS_Guy80 899 comments · 5 Years

red oak said:

A better way to analyze attach rates is using installed bases, not quarterly sales. People buy iPhones and Watches on different timetables

Using those metrics, the attach rate is approx:

150 million Watches / 1.1 billion iPhones = 13.6%

dewme 5737 comments · 10 Years

red oak said:

A better way to analyze attach rates is using installed bases, not quarterly sales. People buy iPhones and Watches on different timetables

Using those metrics, the attach rate is approx:

150 million Watches / 1.1 billion iPhones = 13.6%

I don't know if one way of looking at attach rate is necessarily better than another. Both ways provide useful information but over different time windows. If you're actively doing something to try to boost attach rate, like modifying your marketing mix in some way (which includes product changes), looking at the delta in a smaller time window may give you more immediate feedback about the effectiveness of your campaign.

What strikes me as a bit counterintuitive with respect to the iPhone-Apple Watch attachment is that over the last few Apple Watch releases Apple has actually made the watch more autonomous and less reliant on the iPhone. That would seemingly result in a decrease or slower rate of growth in the attach rate. This may lend more credence to your interpretation of what is a better way of looking at the attach rate for this particular pair of products.

My gut feeling here is that the Apple Watch has simply become a more attractive product on its own and the attach rate with iPhone has less to do with iPhone and more to do with Apple Watch itself. The iPhone is still obviously a halo product that buoys up a wide range of other Apple products, and yes, you still need an iPhone to setup and make best use of an Apple Watch, but I think the Apple Watch is largely improving its attractiveness based on its own merits. If the hard iPhone dependency went away the Apple Watch would probably still do quite well.

Hreb 90 comments · 5 Years

dewme said:

I don't know if one way of looking at attach rate is necessarily better than another.

Ok but one of the ways directly contradicts AppleInsider's "now owned by 30% of iPhone users" headline.

Xed 2875 comments · 4 Years

dewme said:

red oak said:

A better way to analyze attach rates is using installed bases, not quarterly sales. People buy iPhones and Watches on different timetables

Using those metrics, the attach rate is approx:

150 million Watches / 1.1 billion iPhones = 13.6%

I don't know if one way of looking at attach rate is necessarily better than another. Both ways provide useful information but over different time windows. If you're actively doing something to try to boost attach rate, like modifying your marketing mix in some way (which includes product changes), looking at the delta in a smaller time window may give you more immediate feedback about the effectiveness of your campaign.

What strikes me as a bit counterintuitive with respect to the iPhone-Apple Watch attachment is that over the last few Apple Watch releases Apple has actually made the watch more autonomous and less reliant on the iPhone. That would seemingly result in a decrease or slower rate of growth in the attach rate. This may lend more credence to your interpretation of what is a better way of looking at the attach rate for this particular pair of products.

My gut feeling here is that the Apple Watch has simply become a more attractive product on its own and the attach rate with iPhone has less to do with iPhone and more to do with Apple Watch itself. The iPhone is still obviously a halo product that buoys up a wide range of other Apple products, and yes, you still need an iPhone to setup and make best use of an Apple Watch, but I think the Apple Watch is largely improving its attractiveness based on its own merits. If the hard iPhone dependency went away the Apple Watch would probably still do quite well.

As far as I know the Watch still requires the owner to also own an iPhone. That means that all Watch owners also own iPhones. This can't even be setup using an iPad at this point, AFAICT. This means that Apple Watch to iPhone use is effectively an easy sales of one divided by the sales to the other, multiplied by 100. Only Apple would have a better ratio with iCloud account linking to be able to weed out people with multiple iPhones and Watches, or even weed out iPhones used as single-used devices by companies, for example, to get more accurate ratios.