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Apple Sold an Estimated 600,000 HomePod Speakers During the First Quarter of 2018
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It doesn't matter what they price this at. While the sound is good - actually very good - it's crippled by software.
I preordered one and received it the second week of February. Got it all hooked up and realized it's just an extension of a single iPhone. The d@mn thing is a PERSONAL speaker - in the middle of a public space.
This silly little speaker is just another Apple push for their subscription music service. **** that!
Returned it 3 days later and went back to the Sonos Play 5.
I swear I wonder every day if I'm no longer Apple's target customer: despite having been an Apple customer for almost twenty years and spent well over $25K on Apple products in that time.
I preordered one and received it the second week of February. Got it all hooked up and realized it's just an extension of a single iPhone. The d@mn thing is a PERSONAL speaker - in the middle of a public space.
This silly little speaker is just another Apple push for their subscription music service. **** that!
Returned it 3 days later and went back to the Sonos Play 5.
I swear I wonder every day if I'm no longer Apple's target customer: despite having been an Apple customer for almost twenty years and spent well over $25K on Apple products in that time.
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And Apple will look set to dominate with yet another record-breaking quarter?
You do know that the Apple watch market is for all intents and purposes the smartwatch market, right?
The problem with the HomePod is that its highly overpriced compared to how much it cost to assemble and shouldn't cost no more than $229.
And make a cheaper version of HomePod similar to the Airport express to make a mesh wi-fi network at home, so with one device you bring connectivity and music+siri to other rooms
I know and I am a grumpy die hard mac fan which makes me feel sad to see the amount of time they put in consumer products and not making a real pro mac book pro or Mac Pro for 5 years. But I know the money is there too.
Maybe its time for Apple Pro and Apple Consumer divisions.
If you look at the HomePod and all you see is a more expensive, dumber Dot, then you’ve badly miscategorized it. The same thing happened with the Apple Watch at first — “it’s just a much more expensive FitBit, and is doing very badly in the FitBit category.”
Manufacturing and logistics is not simple. I am sure they would have wanted to bring to more countries, but the product was delayed as is.
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This would be a great idea.
The determination of "fail" or "succeed" in business world isn't determined by the volume, even at a pricepoint that it moves at.
The determination of success in business is profitability. More importantly, Return on Investment. Apple will have created financial plans and budgets that will revolve around certain revenue necessities to offset costs involved with bringing the product to market (from inception to transaction). This determination is really the only "was it successful" metric that is really of value.
Apple might have sold 600,00 unites bringing in $210,000,000 in revenues, but that number in of itself doesn't determine success or failure.
FOr example, as you said, you'dLOVE a "failed" product that gets 600,000 units shipped. But what while bringing in $210,000,000 in revenues, it cost you $300,000,000 to R&D? What if you actually produced 1m units expecting to bring in $350,000,000 in revenue to offset those costs?
Honestly, Nobody here on MacRumors can make the claim of sucess or failure unless we know what Apple's financial budgets for this device was. All we can do is play Armchair CEO (which I do often
) and make guesses based on rumour and speculation. 600,000 units doesn't sound bad IMHO, but the rumours of Apple reducing orders for more from vendors and reports of units sitting not moving on shelves leads me to believe they over-estimated how many units they would sell
Lmaooo out of the HomePod business, or business in general?
Where do you guys come up with these statements.
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I love mine as does everyone I know personally who has one. Can't wait for the iOS 11.4 Stereo/AirPlay 2 upgradesSounds like most owners like theirs...I might have to reconsider...
600k is pretty low volume for Apple, but I think comparing it to the smart speaker market is a bit disingenuous. How does it compare to Sonos?
You can't really say that people chose a $30 Echo Dot or $30 Google Home Mini over a $350 speaker, because those "speakers" sound like literal trash, you are better off playing music out of your iPhone speaker. That is my point - HomePod is bought for playing music, Echo/Home are bought for checking the weather every morning. Sonos One would be a much better comparison as they are more functionally equivalent. Or at least limiting the Alexa comparison to the full size echo's which I am sure are much less prevalent.
You can't really say that people chose a $30 Echo Dot or $30 Google Home Mini over a $350 speaker, because those "speakers" sound like literal trash, you are better off playing music out of your iPhone speaker. That is my point - HomePod is bought for playing music, Echo/Home are bought for checking the weather every morning. Sonos One would be a much better comparison as they are more functionally equivalent. Or at least limiting the Alexa comparison to the full size echo's which I am sure are much less prevalent.
I'm well on the record here that I'm not a HomePod fan as it was released. But, 600K really isn't a terrible # for a product that shipped without it's full claimed feature set and almost non-existent marketing by Apple, even in it's own stores. Peanuts for Apple, yes, but only if Apple was really pushing sales. It's not. It's mostly a viral info product.
Apple has not admitted as much, but HomePod really feels like AppleTV when it was released. The much noted "it's a hobby" kind of product that truly dedicated Applephiles (vs technophiles) will buy while Apple gets the kinks out. Eventually it could be a decent general consumer product and, hopefully, a full line. Will be interesting to see how Apple nurtures it, and if it will become more than essentially an Apple Music accessory that it is today.
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I know how you feel as and "old timer" myself -- Mac since '88, dabbled with Apple II's in HS. Part of the problem with aging is getting use to what once was transition into something else entirely. That is Apple right now. In my life computers have gone from business machines to something everyone had and back to the future of today where they are again mostly business machines. That's not a business that can sustain Apple because Apple never served main st. business like MS did, just the more artistic industries.
Even iPhone growth has really peaked, so services is Apple's next growth sector. All it's new hardware is going to support that endeavor. We see it with AW LTE, now HomePod, which incidentally isn't compatible with Home Sharing so you can stream music from your Mac to HP. Wonder why!
So yeah, Apple is become less relevant to us aging Gen Xers and even late baby boomers. We've progressed to the demographic age that doesn't matter.
Apple has not admitted as much, but HomePod really feels like AppleTV when it was released. The much noted "it's a hobby" kind of product that truly dedicated Applephiles (vs technophiles) will buy while Apple gets the kinks out. Eventually it could be a decent general consumer product and, hopefully, a full line. Will be interesting to see how Apple nurtures it, and if it will become more than essentially an Apple Music accessory that it is today.
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I know how you feel as and "old timer" myself -- Mac since '88, dabbled with Apple II's in HS. Part of the problem with aging is getting use to what once was transition into something else entirely. That is Apple right now. In my life computers have gone from business machines to something everyone had and back to the future of today where they are again mostly business machines. That's not a business that can sustain Apple because Apple never served main st. business like MS did, just the more artistic industries.
Even iPhone growth has really peaked, so services is Apple's next growth sector. All it's new hardware is going to support that endeavor. We see it with AW LTE, now HomePod, which incidentally isn't compatible with Home Sharing so you can stream music from your Mac to HP. Wonder why!
So yeah, Apple is become less relevant to us aging Gen Xers and even late baby boomers. We've progressed to the demographic age that doesn't matter.
Out of curiosity, does it ever feel like a let down to know the richest company in the world, doesn't care to spend a little money to make Siri better, or to fix any of the multiple hardware and software issues? I mean look at the quality batteries they use, or how horrible iOS is? The fact that cheaper Android handsets beat the almighty bionic a11 in real world usage must feel like an insult from the company that only cares about its own profits, and not its customers.
With that being said, what does Apple having a record breaking quarter/year do for the customer. I am not talking about investors or someone who has stocks, but strictly a customer. It just seems that finances/profit is the new deflection tactic that fans use to switch the goalposts of users comments when they have no answer.
Start selling in other countries besides the current 3, and I'm sure sales would go up dramatically.
"Except it really doesn’t sound that great."
Mine sounds excellent, especially after the update. I especially appreciate the automatic room acoustics equalization each time HomePod is moved, and that the sound is excellent no matter where I'm located in the room. Also like that I can communicate with HomePod in a normal voice no matter how loud it is currently playing music, and no matter where I am in the room - even 20 feet away.
And that I can watch videos on any of my Macs and stream the audio portion to HomePod. The real plus is that it works seamlessly with Apple Music, always on, never having to boot it or something else up. And never worrying about an open mic to google or Amazon in my house.
"600K shipped. How many returns?"
I don't know. Geez, why would I care? How about Amazon's and Google's shipments, how many returns? Same thing...why would I care about that as well? That's something for tech bros to get lathered up about on tech forums.
Just get an echo dot for $30-50. I will let you use Amazon's music service or if you have Spotify, Spotify as the music services. All of your collections, favorites, and playlist are available with a few words. And it come with Bluetooth and a 1/8" jack you can plug into a proper sound system with big speakers. I use the echo as source for my audio system that plays indoor and in my backyard for parties and dining outside. Best 30 bucks I ever spent.
I'ts a bit misleading as none of these companies report unit sales or shipment. Those two terms are often conflated with eachother because of a lack of real numbers directly from the vendor. These numbers tend ot come from 3rd party analysts who collect data elsewhere to compile these.
When talking "shipments" and "sales", often time these numbers just mean devices that have been "sold" or "shipped" from the original company (apple/microsoft/samsung) to end point sales. once they reach 3rd party retailers, they're to have been considered "sold" already. Even if they sit on the store shelves.
any of these numbers rom these 3rd party analysts do need to be taken with a bit of a grain of salt, as they cannot be considered 100% accurate. They're meant to provide an educated guess on to the market health.
Language issues mainly. For products to be able to be sold in Canada, especially voice assistance, they need to be fully available in both English and French. I know SIRI on the phone supports French, but it's possible that hasn't been made to work yet on the HomePod (maybe someone else can answer?)
this also includes packaging, so maybe to maximize US exposure, they only produced the first batch of packaging that was English only because they thought they'd be able to sell enough.
Same issue happened with Google Max. It actually only officially launched in Canada last month.
But, every Echo has Bluetooth and a 1/8" jack. So it can connect to any Bluetooth speaker you can buy. Or to a huge sounds system, just like the rest of your audio gear. And you have your choice of music services. You can uses Amazon's free service, or a wider service like Spotify.
And all of this is before you consider the Alexa eco system where 3rd parties have written hundreds of interface skills that make service and products accessible from Echo devices.