The Apple watch hasn't killed Fitbit

The Apple Watch was expected to be a disaster for companies like Fitbit. It hasn't been.

While Fitbit's sales dipped as anticipation for Apple's smartwatch grew, the company has bounced back this spring and appears to be doing just fine, according to data provided exclusively to Bloomberg by Slice Intelligence. After Apple's monster first week, Fitbit products have actually outsold Apple Watches, according to Slice.

Slice collects data from the emailed receipts of about 2.5 million people, and says its data parallels information from the Department of Commerce and Amazon sales data. Its data on wrist- based computers shows a few interesting things: Fitbit is the only fitness tracker that matters

Over the past year, Fitbit has outsold the rest of the fitness tracking market combined (excluding Apple). While the entire industry saw a bump during last year's holiday season, companies such as Jawbone, Garmin, and Samsung saw their wearable sales decline quickly after Christmas. Fitbit's never dropped to their preholiday levels, and began ramping up again this spring. In a regulatory filing submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, Fitbit says it sold 20.8 million devices between September 2009 and the end of this March, 10.9 million of which it sold in 2014. People are seeking out Fitbit products specifically

When people buy Fitbit products online, the most common place they're doing it is on the company's own website. More than 43 percent of Fitbit sales take place on Fitbit.com, slightly edging out Amazon, which accounts for 40 percent of online sales of Fitbit devices. This likely means that many people know they want a Fitbit before they go to make a purchase, rather than searching on Amazon and choosing between brands. For Fitbit, it has the added advantage of allowing the company to avoid splitting revenue with a retail partner.

While Fitbit products and the Apple Watch are both designed to be worn on people's wrists, they serve different functions. Fitbit is tightly focused on fitness. Apple pitches its product as a more general-use device. There's also a significant difference in price, with Fitbit devices ranging from $60 to $250 and the Apple watch starting at $350 and going straight up to ridiculous. According to Slice, less than 5 percent of people who bought a Fitbit since the end of 2013 have also purchased an Apple Watch. About 11 percent of people who bought an Apple Watch had purchased a Fitbit product over that period.

It could be that it is simply too early for the Apple Watch to have cut into Fitbit's business. Apple hasn't released any official numbers or expectations for Apple Watch sales, and analyst forecasts are all over the place. There's still skepticism from many quarters about whether smartwatches and fitness bands will ever go mainstream. Apple optimists think that it is supply, not demand, that is limiting sales. In April, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook acknowledged that demand was greater than supply, and said the company was working to remedy that. It could be that the devices will eat Fitbit's lunch once Apple's supply chain starts humming along. But for now anyway, it seems like there's room in wearable computing for both companies - but maybe not anyone else.