People’s Daily recently published a report based on news from RFI (Radio France International) and Agence France-Presse that Chinese mobile device manufacturers released a large number of Apple Watch look-alikes before Apple started selling its long-awaited Apple Watch. All of these Chinese watches appeared to look just like Apple Watch, even with identical user interface and icons. However they all ran the Android mobile operating system and they were priced at around one sixth the cost of the lowest priced Apple Watch model. One owner of these Chinese factories told a French reporter that his smart watches match the Apple Watch in both appearance and performance and have a much lower price – his products even offered slightly more functionalities than Apple. One of his factories can manufacture around 2,000 smart watches a day, with a monthly volume of 50,000. Even Apple Stores didn’t carry Apple Watches on the release date of April 24. They were only available via online reservations or in certain luxury stores in a few cities around the globe.
Source: People’s Daily, April 24, 2015
http://it.people.com.cn/n/2015/0424/c1009-26900110.html