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...So How is the Watch Selling?

Psyfuzz

Psyfuzz

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 5, 2014
296
196
Hey guys,

A quick search around and finding a solid, straight figure is surprisingly difficult. Given Apple's usual propensity for showing it's sales and successes I'm surprised Apple hasn't been more upfront with it's performance.

I also traveled to my local store to have a look in person and noticed the Watch section almost vacant, nobody was there even messing about with the home screen - something extremely strange for a brand new Apple product, I remember the iPad section of these stores being choc-a-bloc for months after launch.

Despite the quality of the product there does seem to be less of a 'buzz' around this launch, has reception been frostier than Apple would've have liked? :(
 
Psyfuzz said:
Hey guys,

A quick search around and finding a solid, straight figure is surprisingly difficult. Given Apple's usual propensity for showing it's sales and successes I'm surprised Apple hasn't been more upfront with it's performance.

I also traveled to my local store to have a look in person and noticed the Watch section almost vacant, nobody was there even messing about with the home screen - something extremely strange for a brand new Apple product, I remember the iPad section of these stores being choc-a-bloc for months after launch.

Despite the quality of the product there does seem to be less of a 'buzz' around this launch, has reception been frostier than Apple would've have liked? :(
Click to expand...

I doubt the sales are fantastic. The problem is Apple was not properly prepared and is taking a very long time to produce these, even though the numbers are millions and millions less than iphones. Maybe this was Apple's plan all along to create buzz and make people want it even more
 
It's probably also the limited supply. Everyone who wanted to play with a watch went in the first month. Then they learned that try on appts were easy to get, but the watch was running a dummy loop and you can't really play with it. So that probably kills off try-ons except for getting yourself a feel for watch band size.

And it sounds like Apple is limited on how many they can make. There was news of the Taptic engine problem, and several of those stories say Apple told suppliers to reduce part production. So it seems like they are just limited in how many watches they can make for a while.

As far as sales, I don't think we'll see any comments about that until a couple months out, or the next financials, whichever comes first.
 
To be honest I don't think general population even knows it's available yet. I think in a few months itll pick up. Hell I just saw the first TV ads last night.
With that said when I had a try on appointment last weekend the watch section was packed
 
Remember only a small subset of all people can use one (iPhone owners).
The other thing is some don't se something like this is useful, let alone something needed.
 
I would guess only a couple hundred thousand have been ordered.

If it was millions Apple would have told us.
 
Some of the CL prices for new "used" models in particular the 38MM Sport White are just plain stupid. I am all for supply and demand, but selling one for $720 is crazy. That is the most popular model in the wild and you can get one brand new sealed btwn 450-500 in most cases.

:apple:
 
I'm sure it isn't selling much. You can get ALL the models in 1-3 days. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it has sold around 20,000 watches since April 10th.

:)
 
Apple seems to have sold more than they were planning on, but we have no way of knowing if they were planning on selling 10,000 and sold 20,000 or were planning on 1,000,000 and sold 2,000,000. It seems to be an item with a very large profit margin so while we aren't likely to see actual numbers if it is selling well then we should see a large jump in the amount of revenue under other in their next financial report. If it is selling poorly and they just really underproduced then I wouldn't expect much of a jump.
 
nfl46 said:
I'm sure it isn't selling much. You can get ALL the models in 1-3 days. If I had to take a guess, I'd say it has sold around 20,000 watches since April 10th.

:)
Click to expand...

Im not sure what you're quoting here. Its estimated over 2 million total watches have been sold/preordered.
 
Apple said before we could even order the watch that they were not going to release sales figures, and that it would be lumped into "other" or something like that. They're not going to trumpet how many they've sold and were never planning to.

I guarantee you though--it's a hell of a lot more than 20,000.
 
If they had mega sales I would think they would have changed their mind and told the world and not lump in the sales with other items.
 
I have a good feeling that Apple is confident enough in the Watch to quote is a general number of watches sold on when demand catches up.

Especially if to say that the number of watches sold during launch month eclipsed the entire market.
 
Last edited:
Apple likes to announce these figures at their events more than anything else. They'll likely publish them at the WWDC, as they'll want to get the software developers excited about Watch and developing as many new applications as they can (if they aren't already).

Analysts suggest the preorders in the US were about 1M. Me, I'm thinking by the time early June hits and Tim's on the stage, the number that comes up behind him (worldwide) could be 3-4M...maybe even more! (keep in mind, China was a day 1 country - they could easily outpace the US for orders).

Now, how many will have them in their hot little hands by then? None of us have that view - the actual orders by SKU vs the production schedule. Hopefully Apple has a handle on it - they'll need to have the backfills satiated by the time they kick off in-store (which I think they were hoping for in June).
 
CrackerJackToy said:
Im not sure what you're quoting here. Its estimated over 2 million total watches have been sold/preordered.
Click to expand...


Apple also had to dump majority of initial stock because of faulty taptic stock


That's why people who have ordered minutes after pre orders haven't been charged
 
For this product in a new category...the early adopter sales won't mean a whole lot. I assume the first real test of expectations versus reality will come at the end of the year after holiday sales when this may become more of a mainstream product.

The base of early adopters is relatively small compared to the general population they will need to sell these watches too to meet analyst estimates.
 
I was in the Apple Store over the weekend and the crows was normal. Lots of people looking at the watch. I think one issue is that you can't really just pick up the watch and try and it on and mess with it. There are demo units that you can play with but can't get a true grasp of the product, unlike other products which you can interact with much more.
 
I don't think the numbers will be announced at WWDC either. The reason I say this is because there was so many pre-orders that don't equal sales. You got people that ordered 4-5, and will return all but one. The numbers will not be solid until people stop trying to order whatever is shipping the fastest. Not to mention that some have delivery dates in July.
 
The lack of inventory in the Apple Stores is what's going to hurt the initial numbers. The fact that anyone who goes into a store and plays with the watch still has to go home and "pre-order" one, is enough of a deterrent, but the fact they will get to the checkout screen with 1-2 moths backorder, should be enough to put many off completely.

I doubt the WWDC numbers will be fantastic. But Apple will put the best spin on it possible. They will surely sell more smartwatches in 3 months than the competition did in an entire year. So that bodes well. I just have a problem with assuming all 1 million projected US pre-orders stuck. There have been a lot of returns, and many people double ordered to ensure they got the watch they wanted having ordered sight-unseen, so even more cancellations. The whole thing has been a confusing mess.

So I'm expecting to see a conservative number of orders reported (and make no mistake, Apple will still probably be talking in terms of order, since they more than likely will still be behind filling them, and they can't charge the card until it ships) -- but still enough to brag that they have dominated the market.

But I agree, I don't see this product lighting a fire under the average iPhone user, which only the 5-6plus users can take advantage of anyway.
 
I work out twice a day now in 3 different gyms - one of which is in Bellevue, WA where a lot of rich people live. I have never seen anyone with a watch in the wild (except two occasions - one when I went to Wendy's and there is a chubby guy ordering a burger and the other time was today when I ran into somebody at my company wearing a sport one with a blue band. He looked like a programmer). It makes me wonder how many they actually sell. A lot of people in my gym wear a Fitbit though.
 
Bbqthis said:
Tim Cook said they weren't going to be discussing specific Watch sales so rivals won't know the data.
Click to expand...

This. I believe it was months before iPhone 1 sales data was released to the public and the same went for iPad 1. Apple doesn't release sales figures for new launches because it doesn't know what defines a good launch. Selling a million sticks of gum in the first day wouldn't be great for Wrigley because the market is much larger than that.

Apple doesn't quite know if 100,000, 500,000, 1M, 2M, etc... is the right number because there simply isn't enough known about this market niche. Thus, it wouldn't be smart to release your sales numbers.

----------
seatton said:
I work out twice a day now in 3 different gyms - one of which is in Bellevue, WA where a lot of rich people live. I have never seen anyone with a watch in the wild (except two occasions - one when I went to Wendy's and there is a chubby guy ordering a burger and the other time was today when I ran into somebody at my company wearing a sport one with a blue band. He looked like a programmer). It makes me wonder how many they actually sell. A lot of people in my gym wear a Fitbit though.
Click to expand...

Yep...took a trip to Bellevue Square last night. There was more interest in iPhone 6 than there was in the Watch.
 
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