SmartWatch Sales

Bought a smartwatch recently? How very 2015 of you.

The number of smartwatches shipped over the most recent three months has declined 52 percent compared with the same July-to-September period last year, according to a report by IDC wearables analysts.

Apple remains the leading smartwatch maker, but it has also seen fewer people interested in its tech-enabled timepiece this year than in 2015. It has lost significant ground to Garmin, thanks to that company's growing portfolio of fitness-focused smartwatches.

In 2015, Apple owned more than 70 percent of the smartwatch market and Garmin only 2 percent. Garmin now owns more than 20 percent, and Apple 41 percent.

Samsung has remained on pretty much an even keel, even though its newest watch, the Gear S3, hasn't yet gone on sale. Motorola, on the other hand, has been a victim of its own success, given that many vendors sold out of the first and second generations of its Moto 360 device -- and that for the first time in several years it has not released a smartwatch in the run-up to the holidays.