Apple's new watch will come just in time - sales dropped 56% last quarter

Apple is expected to release a new version of the Apple Watch at an event in California on Wednesday.

Hopefully, the new model will turn around sales.

Apple Watch sales declined 56.7% from the same quarter last year, according to an estimate released by IDC on Tuesday.

According to the estimate, Apple sold 3.6 million Apple Watches in the 2nd quarter last year. This year? A comparatively paltry 1.6 million.

Apple doesn't release Apple Watch sales figures, the same way it does for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

That leaves IDC as the best estimate for Apple Watch sales. According to the market researcher, Apple was the only vendor among the market leaders to post an annual decline "primarily because it did not launch a new model on the anniversary of its first generation Watch."

We'll see if the new watch gets people to take out their credit cards. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, an Apple soothsayer, is expecting a new model with:

• A GPS chip, which enables better fitness tracking for runners.
• A faster processor.
• Better battery life.
• WatchOS 3, a revamp and improvement to the original Watch software.

Here are IDC's estimates:

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