The Apple Watch is selling better than you might think

Just when it seemed the smartwatch hype train may have finally died off, it appears the Apple Watch is selling surprisingly well.

For the last couple of years, Fitbit had led wearable sales, suggesting fitness trackers, not smartwatches, would be king moving forward. But then Tim Cook announced Apple Watch sales had “nearly doubled” since last year, and now a report by Strategy Analytics suggests Apple has overtaken Fitbit for the first time since the original Apple watch was released in 2015.

The report claims Apple has shipped approximately 3.5 million smartwatches, up from 2.2 million last year, for a total of 15.9 percent of the wearables in the US. Fitbit, by comparison, shipped 2.9 million devices, 35 percent less than last year.

But here’s some good news for everyone involved: wearable shipments have increased overall year over year, from 18.2 million in 2016 to 22 million this year. There’s some hope for the smartwatch yet.