Tim Cook insists the Apple Watch is doing just fine

The Apple Watch is doing just fine in terms of technology. We're onto the second generation of hardware, all the early software kinks have been worked out, and there's a healthy stable of third-party apps coming along.

But when it comes to actual sales of the Watch, Apple has remained eerily tight-lipped. The company has shown no delay in boasting about record-breaking iPhone sales before, but we haven't heard so much about the Watch.

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According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, no-one (particularly Apple's shareholders!) needs to be worried. “Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular holiday gifts this year,” Cook told Reuters in an email. "Sales growth is off the charts. In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the product’s history. And as we expected, we’re on track for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch."

We're assuming that Cook really couldn't find those sales charts, since he declined to supply Reuters with actual numbers.

A one-week sales bump for the Apple Watch is definitely good news for Apple, but the rest of the statement doesn't really tell us much. Of course this quarter should be the best ever for Apple Watch -- new hardware was just released, and the old hardware is down to an all-time low price. Things have never been so good for Apple Watch buyers.

But across the smartwatch industry as a whole, things aren't so rosy. Supply-chain data from IDC had the Apple Watch down 70 percent over the summer, and while a lot of that is going to be due to people waiting for the Apple Watch 2, part of that is just the general decline in the smartwatch market. Sure, Apple is still the biggest smartwatch maker, but that's really not much more important than Toshiba being the leading manufacturer of HD-DVDs.