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Apple Watch sales are likely to tumble this year as the company prepares a second-generation smartwatch that is only a modest upgrade over the original version, respected Apple ( AAPL ) analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities said in a note Monday. Kuo predicts that Apple Watch sales will fall by more than 25% this year, according to 9to5Mac . He estimates that Apple will sell fewer than 7.5 million watches for the full year, compared with 10.6 million units last year when the watch was only available for eight months. Kuo argues that the Apple Watch lacks killer applications, and the hardware has room for improvement. Limited battery life and reliance on the iPhone for functionality are two knocks on the Apple Watch, he said. The next version of the Apple Watch is likely to be an “S model” refresh, with only incremental changes to the device, which will look basically the same, he said. It is seen launching this fall along with the iPhone 7. Kuo doesn’t expect a major redesign of the Apple Watch until 2017. But Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White disagrees. In a note Friday, he said Apple Watch 2 could be 20% to 40% thinner than the current model and might be launched in June at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Last month, market research firm IDC predicted that Apple would ship 14 million units of its smartwatch this year, compared with an estimated 11.6 million units in 2015. Apple’s biggest competition in smartwatches comes from manufacturers using Alphabet ’s ( GOOGL ) Android Wear operating system, IDC said. Image provided by Shutterstock . Scalper1 News
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