Samsung’s Gear S smartwatch gave people a taste of Samsung’s smartwatch prowess and managed to invigorate the market. The sequel to that watch, the Gear S2, managed millions of sales and surged to the top ranks of the smartwatch world in short order, then proceeded to stay there. Between its advanced operating system and myriad hardware advancements, it’s not hard to see why it did so well, and is still selling in great numbers. It would seem that Samsung is expecting the Gear S3 lineup to do even better. Reports indicate that Samsung has decided to push their original sales target for the Gear S3 family up by about 60% in comparison to the last fiscal year’s total smartwatch sales for the company, meaning that they’ll be looking to sell about 5 million units before the smartwatch reaches its end of life.
The Gear S3 will come in two shades; a more refined and classical variant, called “Classic”, that looks like a traditional watch, as well as the somewhat more rugged “Frontier” version, which will come bundled with 4G LTE and 3G connectivity in some regions. Both versions will feature mostly the same OS and features, making the difference practically topical in markets that lack the connected version of the Frontier variant. Both will have a 380mAh battery, and the Frontier will be a bit heavier.
In the last fiscal year, Samsung sold about 3.1 million total wearables, according to data from the IDC. The Gear S3 is reportedly set to drop in October, which puts it in basically direct competition with the second iteration of the Apple Watch. While competing with such a juggernaut on even ground may sound like a disadvantage, aggressive and wise marketing could see Samsung’s timepieces come out on top, and even do better because of the brand recognition and media coverage they end up receiving by dethroning the Apple Watch 2, or even simply trying to. The given sales target for the Gear S3 family, being around 5 million, may be in the first year, or may be meant to indicate projected performance over the entire lifetime of the device. In any case, Samsung has their work cut out for them, and the ambitious duo of smartwatches have every chance to show they have what it takes to top out the market.