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Apple CEO Tim Cook: We're 'Working Hard' to Remedy Apple Watch Supply/Demand Imbalance

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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During today's earnings call covering the second fiscal quarter of 2015, Apple CEO Tim Cook did not share information on Apple Watch sales, but there were several analyst questions on the new wearable, leading Cook to shed a bit of light on Apple's efforts to fulfill orders.

According to Cook, demand for the Apple Watch is much greater than supply, but the company is "working hard to remedy that." He said that Apple made a lot of progress on that over the past week, and was able to deliver the Apple Watch to more customers than Apple had originally anticipated.

applewatchtrio.jpg
"We're going to keep doing that," Cook said, noting that some customers would begin receiving updated info on improved shipping estimates today. Apple is "generally happy" with its efforts to boost supply and get the Apple Watch out to customers as soon as possible, and Apple Watch availability may expand to other countries in late June. "It is a new product for us. With any new product, you wind up taking some time to fully ramp."
I think we're in a good position and sometime in late June we currently anticipate being in a position where we could begin to sell the Apple Watch in additional countries. That's our current plan.
Click to expand...
Cook said that it was difficult to gauge demand without a product in stores, and that customer response has been "overwhelmingly positive." Apple is also "far ahead" of where it expected to be from an application point of view. According to Cook, the iPhone had approximately 500 apps available at launch, while the iPad had 1,000. Apple hoped to meet or beat the iPad's 1,000 available apps at launch internally, but far exceeded that with 3,500 available apps. "We couldn't be happier about how things are going from that point of view."

Cook noted that Apple is "learning quickly about customer preferences between the different configurations" and that the company will be making adjustments to get in line with demand.

Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook: We're 'Working Hard' to Remedy Apple Watch Supply/Demand Imbalance
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/27/apple-watch-supply-demand-balance/
3bs

3bs

macrumors 603
May 20, 2011
5,434
24
Dublin, Ireland
Glad to see they're concerned about people who pre-ordered the Retina Macbook and are still waiting for it to even ship... :rolleyes:
 
T

tCruzin4lyfe

macrumors regular
Jun 23, 2010
132
0
Hopefully I'll see a update on my Watch order. Placed it at 3:04 am and still in the "Processing Items" phase.
 
extricated

extricated

macrumors 6502
Jul 14, 2011
448
65
Arkansas
Cook noted that Apple is "learning quickly about customer preferences between the different configurations" and that the company will be making adjustments to get in line with demand.
Click to expand...

How about a silver sport configuration with a black band option?
I've heard lot's of folks stating they wished it had been a selectable option (short of buying just any color to get the watch and then getting a black band separately).
 
Gameboy70

Gameboy70

macrumors 6502a
Sep 21, 2011
515
231
Santa Monica, CA
3bs said:
Glad to see they're concerned about people who pre-ordered the Retina Macbook and are still waiting for it to even ship... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
I ordered an rMB yesterday and got a 4-6 week lead time at the end the transaction. This morning I got a shipping confirmation for this Friday, 5/1.

Unfortunately I've had no such luck with my 42SSSB Watch. Still stuck in June limbo.
 
Rocketman

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Dec 2, 2001
6,191
1,186
Claremont, The intellectual capitol of the world.
With the pre-order period and the differing UPOD delivery times, it seems Apple is quickly changing production schedules to account for actual style selections by users. I mentioned this months ago in my post:

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20756107/

The sheer variety of size, color of watch, and style of band, requires a well honed supply chain to initially make a large shift in preferred styles, to minimize time to supply-demand balance, and to minimize inventory time range.

Based on other lines they seem to be targeting inventory of 4-6 weeks to declare supply-demand balance.

Worldwide this could easily take till October, and in the USA at least early July.

Rocketman
 
J

jacobh101

macrumors regular
Aug 12, 2014
151
802
Boston, MA
I emailed Tim Cook's inbox this past weekend complaining about the :apple: Watch launch and today I had a voice message from someone claiming to be part of Apple's executive team and they want to talk to me directly.
 
C

CptGabok

macrumors member
Apr 20, 2015
86
4
Los Angeles
You would have thought that the "Favorite"-ing option in the Apple store would have helped them predict the demand quantities. Maybe it did and it was only so accurate. But still. I just want my watch.
 
doelcm82

doelcm82

macrumors 68040
Feb 11, 2012
3,748
2,769
Florida, USA
jpiett said:
premature release Timmy..
Click to expand...
They should have had people place orders so that they could know what combinations would be most popular. Then they could have canceled all those orders and ramped up production based on what they learned from the trial run.

Then they would have been able to meet demand, based on real data about what people would order if they were allowed to order whatever they wanted (before they were told that it was just a test to determine what people who didn't know they were being tested would do).:p
 
3bs

3bs

macrumors 603
May 20, 2011
5,434
24
Dublin, Ireland
Gameboy70 said:
I ordered an rMB yesterday and got a 4-6 week lead time at the end the transaction. This morning I got a shipping confirmation for this Friday, 5/1.

Unfortunately I've had no such luck with my 42SSSB Watch. Still stuck in June limbo.
Click to expand...

I assume you're in the US? Us Europeans and the rest of the world other than NA and Australia/New Zealand have still been waiting even though we pre-ordered on the 10th.
 
AstronomyiPhone

AstronomyiPhone

macrumors regular
Jun 9, 2013
156
6
Maryland
...and I just got my shipment notification.

Processing with an estimate of May 12 at the earliest after ordering at xx:03 to preparing for shipment to shipped in one day; wow.

They actually are.
 
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