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

[NARadyk]

I bought many MACs with 0 % financing and it was a no-brained since I got 45 % tax payment back within the time of financing it.
Once you figure out how to optimize your individual cashflow a low percentage credit can be a wise option in case your depot generates more income the same time.

I am going to buy it the day it’ll arrive in the EU stores - and I’ll put it on my CC since I am getting Lufthansa miles for every EUR spent - collecting these award miles pays directly for my next private fights. Easily 1 .. 2 domestic flights a year. I can see no misbehavior in this aprosch.

Needless to say that clearing of the CCs happen in Europe normally after four weeks - thus not the same as in the US.

This is a historic moment IMHO

You don’t have to justify your use of credit.

I don’t think they were shaming credit, just pointing out that many aren’t buying the AVP outright due to the high cost.

Some people refuse to do credit, some people hate credit as a whole, but overall it’s not at a price where the majority can afford to buy the AVP outright with savings or disposable income.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

Oh Jeez... What a boring thread of haters vs fans. I only scanned it, but people seem so polarised these days in politics and everything else. Very little reasoned argument here with people entrenched in their positions and few debating real pros and cons with any objectivity. It's been a polarising product for sure. I can't help but think many haters are people who would actually quite like it, but can't afford it... (Aesop's Fables The fox and the grapes)? I'm quite excited by it, but the first gen or two are not for me. Hats off to those who are getting it though, and can tell us all about it. I hope this will become a product I'm happy to shell out a few thousand on in the near future.

"You hate it because you're poor". Yikes.

That's something I've seen written severally throughout these Vision Pro threads. Rude, presumptuous and wrong on so many levels.

So it appears you are 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.

I said nothing about either product being DOA, just that the numbers of actual users that will be wearing the device will be fewer than the sales numbers we hear about because of the product being bought up and held hostage by scummy people.

 

[BeeeRick]

Getting tired of seeing that photo and that oddly shaped head.

 

[Ctrlos]

Apple Watch was very slow to take off. The iPad before it wasn’t a boom in the launch.

Tim Cook’s ultimate legacy will be does he drive AAPL into the ground by failing to innovate anywhere except this product?.

- The Apple Watch was at least a fashion accessory before Apple noticed its anonymous feedback data showed people were using it for health, so they pivoted.

- I dont think Apple are any less ‘innovative’ than any other company. Efforts like folding phones have their uses but are ultimately gimmicks for a mature product. Phones are in their plateau state and much the same way nobody bemoans the MacBook Pro not having changed its design in 20 years or how a Porsche still looks cool 40 years on, the iPhone 4 will continue to cast its long shadow forever over phone designs.

It will be the watch which ends up supplanting the phone and not a headset.

 

[klasma]

Doesn’t motion sickness come from lag which Vision Pro virtually doesn’t have? Maybe, I don’t know, wait until people get to actually test them?

It also comes from when the movement isn’t closely controlled by the user, like in a roller coaster simulation. So it depends on the application. Some VR games have the user teleport instead of move for that reason.

 

[klasma]

Coincidentally, 160,000 is exactly the number of Apple employees. 😛

 

[bradman83]

I don't think anyone called it a failure after the first year of availability in which it sold over 8m units.

If the 10 year masterplan turns the AVP into AARP (no, not that AARP, silly - Apple Augment Reality Pro!) then I completely agree. The problem Apple will have in the meantime is a classic chicken vs. egg - developers really don't have any motivation to write apps for this platform until there is a market for them and they can make money - but consumers will not buy enough of the AVP until there are enough apps to make it worth the purchase price. And since the purchase price is so high, it would take a lot of useful apps.

Vision Pro apps are essentially iPad apps, so it’s not like it’s a massive imposition for developers of iPad apps to click a button in xCode and create a basic Vision Pro version. If they find it worth their while they then can retool the interface to further take advantage of visionOS, but so many apps even in Apple’s demos are clearly just iPad apps floating in space.

 

[spinedoc77]

- The Apple Watch was at least a fashion accessory before Apple noticed its anonymous feedback data showed people were using it for health, so they pivoted.

- I dont think Apple are any less ‘innovative’ than any other company. Efforts like folding phones have their uses but are ultimately gimmicks for a mature product. Phones are in their plateau state and much the same way nobody bemoans the MacBook Pro not having changed its design in 20 years or how a Porsche still looks cool 40 years on, the iPhone 4 will continue to cast its long shadow forever over phone designs.

It will be the watch which ends up supplanting the phone and not a headset.

A gimmick isn't having a tablet sized screen that can fold into a front pants pocket, that's always struck me as the most inane way to describe folding phones as I sit here and do exactly that, fold my tablet so it fits into my pocket.

I don't think the VP is a gimmick either, as overused, trite, and idiotic that terminology is. It's just in a poor form factor, a heavy, isolating, uncomfortable, 2.5 hour battery life form factor to be exact. This is even worse when you see that other companies have come pretty darn close, the Visor glasses are a good example, to getting this form factor into a much better place and almost almost like a simple pair of glasses.

I don't think the watch will supplant the smartphone either, not until it can possibly project a larger screen outwards, and I don't think that tech is as close as simply getting an AR headset the size of glasses and then contact lenses, both of which exist today.

 

[AdonisSMU]

This is a v1 MBP so the sales make sense.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Vision Pro apps are essentially iPad apps, so it’s not like it’s a massive imposition for developers of iPad apps to click a button in xCode and create a basic Vision Pro version. If they find it worth their while they then can retool the interface to further take advantage of visionOS, but so many apps even in Apple’s demos are clearly just iPad apps floating in space.

Have you seen the apps on Vision Pro to verify that it’s just “iPad apps”. Word and Zoom and some of these other apps that will be available day 1 are superior to the Desktop and iPad versions.

 

[Princejb134]

180,000 units x $3500 per unit = $630,000,000

 

[FasterQuieter]

Beyond the cost, the main reason I didn't order one is the fact it is metal and looks too heavy. I owned the AirPods Max briefly and the weight ruined them for me.

 

[AsarTheGod]

Don't care for this gen but this is GREAT news for VR! Soon as they ditch the dongle battery im buying

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I didn't miss it as I clearly stated in my first sentence that comparing iPhone sales to VP sales was silly.

My point was regarding the 1.4 million figure you used (Apple claimed to have sold around 4 million iPhones in first six months) and average retail pricing was more like $400 each and therefore your $490M year 1 figure was way off. If Apple sold around 4 million iPhone in six months as they claimed and average pricing was around $400 each, total revenue was much higher than $490M. More like $1.6 billion (then) or $2.3 billion (today's dollars) in six months.

Statista is about as objective as it gets... as opposed to any manufacturing marketing spin which may use words like "magical" and "faster than a 3090."

Retail pricing started at $500 and then got significantly discounted soon after launch (and even a rebate from Apple was mailed), further discounted through a consumer lens by working towards "FREE*" via AT&T contract subsidy. By iPhone 4, retail pricing was $199-$299... but consumers were still feeling "free*" or nearly free by contract subsidies.

So whether 1.4 million or 4 million, many customers did not directly spend $400 for GEN 1 phone as tangibly as they are spending $3500 - $5K+ for Vpro transactions with no cell service subsidies & contracts.

Here's another source backing up 1.4M units and sharing revenue from Apple's own financials.

Nevertheless, applying the 4M units claim and $400 vs. all just offered = $1.6B in GEN 1 iPhone revenue. If it is reasonable to divide by the $3700 I'm guessing for average Vpro transactions (maybe that is too small with some accessory purchases too?), I get about 433K units for Vpro to hit THAT SAME revenue number. Rumors are thick that up to 400K is all Apple could make in 2024, so if we take that stance, then iPhone at $1.6B beats Vpro at it's max first year potential of $1.48B IF Apple sells all they can possibly make in the next 12 months. Even then, I can't cast it as DOA or failure, etc as perhaps OP was trying to do by even making the comparison at all. And if 400K MAX rumor is puffed up only 33K units more, then it yields the SAME revenue in year 1. AND if Kuo's number is accurate, it's already at about 41% of iPhone year 1 revenue only 3 days into a pre-release!

Adjusting for inflation can help puff that up some more for this comparison. However, Apple will- if they choose to do so- simply be reporting revenue- whether that's 2007 revenue reporting then or 2024 revenue now. If Apple wants to make this particular case they will NOT adjust for inflation because they would want to show that their brand new product is selling very well... not undermine it by selectively choosing when to use the tactic.

The inflation adjusting game is used where it suits the objective. For example, adjusting for inflation, Gone with the Wind did much better than Avatar, Titanic, Avengers: Endgame and Star Wars A New Hope. If I want to get people to buy GWTW and feel this helps me pitch it, I adjust for inflation to help make my case. On the other hand, if I'm trying to sell one of those other movies, I don't allow some ancient ones into my "Top 10" list so that the product I want to push is as high on such a list as it can be. Depending on the movie to be sold, both GWTW and Avatar can be spun as #1 movie by revenue all time... which serves the purposes of selling BOTH of them as all time #1.

The attempt was to put this iPhone sales barometer of success in perspective: it makes no sense to compare year 17 to first days of year 1 and declare Vpro DOA or incredible or something in between. And if we want to inject variables like inflation adjustments in, then we might as well stand by and wait for this time in 2025 so we can compare actual results vs. actual results.

Personally, I don't care if it is less successful, more successful or as successful as a very different product like iPhone. I care what it can do, what value does it add, can it fulfill on what we've seen so far, what can it do that we haven't yet seen, etc. However, there are these other people playing extremist cards- positive & negative- that sometimes need an extremist bit of content put in perspective... such as comparing a 17 years mature, refined, perfected(?) flagship vs. one that not 1 buyer has got to actually try for themselves yet... and claiming it is DOA... or best thing ever.

The very best judge of whether this is DOA or "best ever" or something in between will come from looking back at actual results at least a year to as many as 17 years (and 17 years of evolution & refinement) from now.

 

[M Hossein Hosseini]

The cost of the hardware is not the same as the development cost. R&D, software, and marking are big part of that other part.

R&D cost of this thing is huge and just like any gen1 product it will take time to have Pure(net) profit.
having net profit IS NOT the(only) sign of success(for a Gen1 product).
Breaking estimations IS!

 

[salz4life]

It's out of my price range... but I'm excited to see if it is a game changer for VR.

 

[AdonisSMU]

500k estimated to be sold this year vs the 20 million Oculus headsets sold in Q1 2023.

Like I said dead on arrival.

There is no interest beyond the fanboys specified by Kuo. Zero developer interest especially to cater for 500k.

And that’s me giving Kuo benefit of the doubt it will reach 500k.

Hold me to account in 2 years time but not looking good for you so far! 😂

Isn’t Apple selling their product for 7X the price of an Oculus?

 

[Ubuntu]

Oh Jeez... What a boring thread of haters vs fans. I only scanned it, but people seem so polarised these days in politics and everything else. Very little reasoned argument here with people entrenched in their positions and few debating real pros and cons with any objectivity. It's been a polarising product for sure. I can't help but think many haters are people who would actually quite like it, but can't afford it... (Aesop's Fables The fox and the grapes)? I'm quite excited by it, but the first gen or two are not for me. Hats off to those who are getting it though, and can tell us all about it. I hope this will become a product I'm happy to shell out a few thousand on in the near future.

I'm in a similar position. My accountant was surprised I didn't want to claim it as a business expense but I know that when they release gen 2 or 3 I'll regret the purchase.

I can't figure out the strong hatred here though, I guess people want a decent option from Apple but are disgusted by the pricing. I get that, especially when the hefty price tag is for the base storage etc.

 

[AdonisSMU]

Stop comparing it to the iPhone. That's a made-up metric by haters. Of course this won't sell in the numbers that the iphone sells. If every product in the world could only be considered a success if it sells as many as the iPhone, nearly every product in the world would be considered a failure.

iPhone was considered a success when it sold 300k units in a few months.

 

[Octavius8]

If the development has the same "innovation" and quality that Apple has shown in the latest 5 years it will be a sad and expensive gimmic to watch some movies alone.
If is compatible with adult videos it might be successful

 

[blackcrayon]

Doesn’t motion sickness come from lag which Vision Pro virtually doesn’t have? Maybe, I don’t know, wait until people get to actually test them?

I'm sure lag would do it. In my experience it also comes from the view moving significantly without the user moving their head. Which is why traditional FPS games where you keep your head stationary but move/look around with a joystick are hard to stomach for some people. Like your brain is saying you are stationary but your eyes perceive differently.

 

[lkrupp]

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

😜

Remember the first Mac? Remember the Apple II+. I paid $1295 for 48K of memory while other competitors like the TRS 80 were selling for $800. Then I paid $695 for the Disk II floppy drive a couple of months later.

 

[vertsix]

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".

This is one of the primary reasons why I am skeptical on Vision Pro.

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but technology is increasingly more and more intrusive and distracting in our lives. Thankfully a lot of people have started to become more aware to this and are starting to part ways for longer.

Even Apple has made features on their platforms (such as Screen Time and Focus Modes) to divert our attention back to the physical world and physical interactions with others.

I'm unsure if the vast majority of people would want to be more isolated and intruded with technology. I don't care how Apple spins it, Apple Vision Pro is by design more distracting, intrusive and isolates you more from the physical world.

 

[Rodney Williams]

I don't know what to say or how to say this. But I will be sitting on the sideline and watch how this whole thing unfolds.

 

[satchmo]

I can afford this, but don't find it very compelling at all.

But you'd think given the almost decade of development, that Apple would have come up with a more tangible use case for the VisionPro.

Instead, we're expected to hope developers come up with interesting apps in another 5-10 years time?