Making smartwatches a neat idea at Fossil (regardless of Douglas Adams)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy notes that humans are “so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea”. I’m often minded of that quote when I look at some of the smartwatch tech on offer today. But there are those with big commitments in the smartwatch market, of course, not least traditional watch manufacturers, such as Fossil where the underlying direction of travel is all too apparent. While traditional watch sales are on the decline, the firm’s connected watch business is reporting revenue growth of 97% year-on-year to become 20% of total sales. This particular generation of digital watch is an indicator of disruption in the market, according to Fossil CEO Kosta Kartsotis: We are operating in an environment going through significant change This is due to a number of trends including the ongoing shift away from traditional retail channels to direct channels such as our own retail stores, . Source