Kuo: Apple Has Already Sold Up to 180,000 Vision Pro Headsets

[Antoniosmalakia]

The dawn of the scalper put an end to the perceived success of a product from early sales numbers.

Apple can 'sell out' and get their monies just like Sony did, but thousands of those sales are now sitting on resale sites at twice the price, and won't be heading to actual users, which somewhat diminishes the level of accomplishment people are taking from this.

 

[oneteam]

it’s interesting that MacRumors has a lot of business analysts and financial strategists 🤣 yet they can’t afford an expense of less than $5k because they don’t know how to manage their personal finances.

 

[chaospet]

How many returns from motion sickness I wonder? This really needs solved and I'm not seeing much mention of it.

Experiences on this thing will be phenomenal though for those that can stomach it. I'd love to be able to handle live events on it, but I do get sick within minutes on any game on the Meta Quest.

I am also wondering how much development commitment there is right now - so many developers are focusing on AI-ifying their existing products, that it could be hard to get them to dedicate resources to VR at the same time. Budgets are tighter right now. Apple should throw devs a bone with some sort of fee amnesty for a for years for Vision Pro apps.

Maybe even help out with funding - Apple has the cash spare.

This device has a high enough refresh rate which helps massively, and it doesn't involve the kinds of experiences that cause VR motion sickness for almost all of those who are susceptible to it (the problem for most people is games where you are moving around with a controller in the virtual world while your physical body is staying still - none of the experiences I've seen promoted on the AVP involve this). I'm sure that concern was a big factor in the way Apple has designed the initial experiences available on the AVP.

 

[polterbyte]

The unofficial info provided by Kuo allow us to state quite safely that early adopters with 3.5k to spare indeed exist. Anything more than that is pure speculation

 

[neuropsychguy]

the device cost them around $1500+ (according to an old leak) to make. they are already getting back $2000 with each device...
besides apple knows what they are doing and they were settling for 80,000 units at launch. so....

Apple has hardware gross profit margins around 35-40%. New devices will almost always have lower margins because of startup and R&D costs. Yet Apple has figured out how to have >100% profit margins on a new device? The cost of a product is never more than the cost of its parts?

 

[djphat2000]

No. I am saying Apple needs to consider how important developers are and start rewarding other people than just the shareholders.

This is how publicly traded business work I'm afraid.

The only way to make it big off AAPL is to own shares. Everyone else except shareholders and executives lose when it comes to AAPL. That’s what Cook needs to change.

People buying the product keeps Apple making what they make and doing what they do. If people didn't buy it, Apple would have to make something else they wanted to keep the business going. Apple does make products to make Shareholders happy. They make products that people (the masses) want to buy and they do. Which makes in the Shareholders happy. For Cook to change the formula would break Apple's business. Then no one gets products.

I bought Vision Pro for the potential. I hope it’s there. I hope it builds on the future. Meta and the other companies haven’t had much success, but I believe Apple could if they did a few things better. If they want developers to develop for Vision Pro they should give developers discounts on them.

I expect the product to do well in the long run. It's Gen 1 that looks really good. Maybe a bit overbuilt. High priced due to it being a full computer on your head. My guess is Gen 3 will be the time for the masses to pick one up.

I personally don’t care about the money to buy a Vision Pro. I am fortunate, but it will be better when Apple can lower the price and make it a mass market product. Then Netflix and lots of other apps will be available. A lot of people are making it out to be all the apps that aren’t available. And that’s a resource thing when it comes to big companies. They need to see how many people will actually buy the Vision Pro. Smaller developers could make it big as it’s a new opportunity. But that’s a big if this product works well and Apple can actually scale it out and reduce the price annually. Something AAPL doesn’t usually do. As AAPL only cares about shareholders and executives. So we need to see changes for Tim Cook’s AAPL to really be a leader in tech that people look up to. Not talking about fans. I am talking about doing right by developers, customers and most importantly employees.

For a first go of something new. It's not overpriced. Remember computer prices in the 90's? Especially Mac's. There are plenty of folks with money on their hands to try something like this out. Give it another round or two and there will be a sub $1000 version of it. The "Pro" model will have the latest and greatest features. More and faster SoC, ram and storage. While the "SE" version will be low cost version. Older CPU less ram, etc. No different than the Apple Watch or iPhone/iPad. They could even get away with putting an A series chip in there and leave the M chips for the Pro model. Many ways to skin this cat.

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

[...] The cost of a product is never more than the cost of its parts?

It's quite common for TVs and game consoles to be sold at a loss when it comes to hardware. The manufacturers often re-coup the costs from licensing, advertisements, data snooping, etc.

 

[bodhisattva]

How many returns from motion sickness I wonder? This really needs solved and I'm not seeing much mention of it.

Experiences on this thing will be phenomenal though for those that can stomach it. I'd love to be able to handle live events on it, but I do get sick within minutes on any game on the Meta Quest.

I am also wondering how much development commitment there is right now - so many developers are focusing on AI-ifying their existing products, that it could be hard to get them to dedicate resources to VR at the same time. Budgets are tighter right now. Apple should throw devs a bone with some sort of fee amnesty for a for years for Vision Pro apps.

Maybe even help out with funding - Apple has the cash spare.

Same thing was said about motion sickness in the V1.0 Oculus Rift, the Vive, even Google Glass. Never was a problem for myself or any dev I knew. Suspect only those prone to bad motion sickness anyway.

 

[MrGimper]

I genuinely, at this point, don’t see a general use for it. It’s a niche device. Everyone could see a use for an Apple Watch, but this, not IMO.

With AVP I’ll jump on when it’s gen 3 or so, it can replace another device in the eco system, and it’s much smaller so you don’t look like a gentleman’s sausage wearing one.

 

[bodhisattva]

My wife and family have so much screen time, I don't care if this thing is brilliant, I don't want our household even more engrossed in "content".

I said the same thing until I put on a V1.0 dev edition of the MS HoloLens. I was tasked at creating a AR trainer for a company I used to work for. The first time I put it on and saw with my own eyes I remember distinctly an audible "whoa!" coming out of my mouth, followed by "okay... I get it." True that was a $5K+ device that never hit the mass market, but Apple is amazing at giving us what we didn't suspect we wanted, and it becoming the norm in society. Looking at you fellow programmers that scoffed when I started developing on the iPhone 1. Now look at the industry. It's not the device that sucks us in.. we need to learn to adapt and use it as the tool it was created to become. We are still in that gray area where it is defining us, rather than the other way around (speaking of our complete addiction to modern 15 second content. I look forward to seeing where Apple takes this. Many have tried to make this the "next big thing" but if anyone can, it'll be Apple (queue up all those calling me a diehard fanboy... nah, just a developer that loves the world of tech, mobile, and what we can do with it.)

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

I genuinely, at this point, don’t see a general use for it. It’s a niche device. Everyone could see a use for an Apple Watch, but this, not IMO. [...]

Not sure I agree with your view on the Apple Watch. Sure the fitness aspects of it were quite clear, that was its niche. Personally it wasn't that aspect that interested me, or even to this day really bothers me.

I was asked a lot at the start "should I get one?" and I usually asked back "do you want to get one, what do you want it to do?". I'd cite notifications and fitness stuff as the main features, everything else is just nice to have.

Personally I like the watch (to this day) for its "Notification Centre on my wrist" function. I can leave my phone on silent all the time, minimise phone pick-ups, and it's handy when in the car for directions (via haptics).

 

[Xavier]

That's a lot of money, even if all 160,000-180,000 were the bottom tier.

Can't wait to try one in the store

 

[webkit]

Those that have changed their mind in buying one and instead looking to buy the next version may regret it if Apple chose to remove or downgrade features/functions for version 2. MR have already made posts where Apple has stated designing and manufacturing the VP has been a very difficult process so it stands to reason that Apple would be looking to make the next version easier to manufacture which could mean certain features and functions are downgraded or removed from the original VP. I am sure Apple would also be looking to make it cheaper as well which would mean lower spec'd parts being used. If Apple do this, would those who decided not to buy the VP now and wait for the next version regret their decision?

Assuming it's a viable product long-term (which I think it will be), it's only going to get better and better. What's likely to eventually happen is that there will be different levels and pricing e.g., Apple Vision SE, Apple Vision, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Vision Ultra, etc.

 

[MAlbi]

Up to 500.000 users.
With my approach towards apple hw finally I do not feel my social-tech bubble is small anymore, just unmonetizable as hell. Gimmie desktop, I am not going to wear those binoculars even for 2 hours. LoL

 

[lkrupp]

So much hate, praying on knees for failure, concoction of theories for reduced future sales, immediate disbelief of reports. Selling of 180,00 units simply cannot be true and must be Apple propaganda and a lie. The entire tech blog universe is up in arms.

Wait. Where have we heard this before? Oh, right...

Macintosh
iPod (only 1000 songs?)
iPad (remember the feminine napkin jokes)
iPhone (doesn’t have keyboard so not a good business phone)
Apple Watch (will fail in a mature watch market, doesn’t have a chance)

And remember that crusty old curmudgeon John C Dvorak chastising Apple for that useless gadget called a mouse and urging them to cease development of something no one wanted?

And so it goes. How long until Vision Pro knockoffs are shipping out the backdoors of Chinese factories?

 

[webkit]

No flaw in comparing year 1 sales of this device to year 17 of iPhone?

Perhaps you should look up how many Year 1 iPhone Gen 1s sold? No time for that? OK. Statista says is was 1.4 million units. What was their average selling price? I don't readily find that in a confirmed form online so let's assume $350 (adjust the following math if you find something different). 1.4 million GEN 1 iPhones times $350 = $490M in year 1 revenue. How great was that!!!

I agree that comparing iPhone sales to VP sales is silly however, as far as original iPhone sales are concerned, I believe Apple claimed to have sold around 4 million in the first six months or so. If we assume average pricing was $400 each, that would be $1.6 billion in revenue in six months. Adjusting for inflation, that's around $2.3 billion today.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

The dawn of the scalper put an end to the perceived success of a product from early sales numbers.

Apple can 'sell out' and get their monies just like Sony did, but thousands of those sales are now sitting on resale sites at twice the price, and won't be heading to actual users, which somewhat diminishes the level of accomplishment people are taking from this.

So it appears you may be saying that PS5 is DOA? It had 15+ months of scarce supply scalping during Covid and sufficiently interested people paid up to get one at scalped uncharges and continue buying them today now that Sony has managed to catch up with demand so that it no longer makes sense to be scalping them.

I'm just back from the cemetery where people have dug many graves for this new product without first even checking the body in person. I saw no graves for PS5.

 

[carlsson]

People are upset about the price. Remember the first Mac?

😜

 

[Karma*Police]

500,000 units would be really poor. Anything less than 2 million would be a flop. This is the first new product from Apple in a decade, after all.

Apple’s marketing machine hasn’t really kicked in yet, so the jury is out, but I have to say, I’ve zero interest in this so VP will be the first new product from Apple I will not be buying, and this is coming from someone who bought a Newton!

 

[topmounter]

Behold the Apple Card financed Gold Rush!

 

[neuropsychguy]

It's quite common for TVs and game consoles to be sold at a loss when it comes to hardware. The manufacturers often re-coup the costs from licensing, advertisements, data snooping, etc.

That’s true, but unlikely to be true for Apple. I do think Apple’s margins are fairly slim with the AVP. What Apple isn’t doing is making more than $2000 on each device, which is what the other commenter I replied to said.

 

[DelayedGratificationGene]

So much hate, praying on knees for failure, concoction of theories for reduced future sales, immediate disbelief of reports. Selling of 180,00 units simply cannot be true and must be Apple propaganda and a lie. The entire tech blog universe is up in arms.

Wait. Where have we heard this before? Oh, right...

Macintosh
iPod (only 1000 songs?)
iPad (remember the feminine napkin jokes)
iPhone (doesn’t have keyboard so not a good business phone)
Apple Watch (will fail in a mature watch market, doesn’t have a chance)

And remember that crusty old curmudgeon John C Dvorak chastising Apple for that useless gadget called a mouse and urging them to cease development of something no one wanted?

And so it goes. How long until Vision Pro knockoffs are shipping out the backdoors of Chinese factories?

Awesome post! Right on and perfectly said

 

[ashdelacroix]

These are good numbers for a niche device with constrained supply in one market in one weekend. I think this new platform is going to be huge. Once midrange products in the line are released, these will fly. There can be little doubt about it. The curiosity around it is enough to pull in significant dollars, but I think the entertainment, exercise and meditation apps will grab people. There's a possibility the business world will become a big part of the success, with potential immersive meeting and work apps becoming more mainstream, though that is more questionable at this early stage. I can also see big game developers very interested, too.

 

[garethjs]

This guy has no idea how many were sold. He also has no idea how many will be returned.

 

[dbwie]

I would like to see comparisons to the original iPhone sales. At that time people had not fully realized the potential, but they did once it got in their hands. This device will not have the same magnitude as the iPhone, but I will be curious to see its use cases evolve as more people have them in their hands. Regardless, it is a really impressive piece of technology. I think they are marketing it for entertainment, because that is the easiest initial use case to envision. Imagine a future version of this that is the size of swim goggles and is more powerful.