Jessica Fischer, Staff Writer
The Apple Watch became available for sale on April 24. Tracking sales of the watch will not be simple, however.
Apple’s first new product line in five years has certainly been causing a lot of buzz, and now is the moment of truth, as the product goes on sale.
Zacks.com, a website founded by Dr. Len Zacks with the purpose of harnessing the power of earning estimates, believes that Apple won’t release the numbers for Apple Watch sales, and that if they do, they will lump it together with other products, including iPods and the Apple TV, “However, reports suggest that the company is unlikely to release much about sales data on the Watch so as not to reveal much information to competitors at this nascent stage. According to reports, Apple is most likely to restructure its financial reporting and Apple Watch will be reported under the Other Products segment, which includes iPod, Apple TV and accessories.”
Zacks went on to report that Apple is expected to draw 60% profit margins from the Apple Watch. Zacks gives at its reasoning that the Apple Watch has lower manufacturing costs.
“Apple Watch is likely to garner around $2 billion in revenues from initial sales.” Zacks.com reports.
Richard Goodwin of KnowYourMobile.com reports that Apple has, “… racked up $1 BILLION in orders thus far.”
But plenty of this is speculation, Goodwin quotes an article from 2paragrpahs.com (a website co-founded by Joseph Mackin, former Internet Editor of The Paris Review) which states that “About 85% of the pre-ordered Apple Watches are believed to be the Apple Watch Sport model which is either $349 or $399.”
From this, those who are curious to know how much Apple is making or losing decided to take the average of those two numbers – $375 – and calculated another number, 1.955 million units (85% of 2.3 million). Using all of these numbers they decided that they could speculate that if they were right it would mean that Apple has collected $733,125,000 on the Apple Sport watch so far.
As of now that’s all anything is in relation to the sale of the Apple Watch – speculation.
Goodwin goes on to say that, “Save for the Apple TV, the Apple Watch – well, at least for the base model – is one of the cheapest products Apple has ever released.” And it seems that most folks are going for the cheapest available option. Whether that is due to continued economic distress or disinterest in extravagance remains to be seen.
“However” Goodwin states, “in the same breath it’s also the most expensive, as Apple revealed the base cost for the premium, gold-plated Apple Watch Edition starts at… wait for it… $10,000.”
Steve Wozniak, original Apple co-founder and still an Apple honorary employee spoke up on the topic of the release, “If you buy the really high-priced ones, the jewelry ones, then you’re not buying a smartwatch that has a bunch of apps … Like a Rolex watch, you’re buying it for prestige and a label and a symbol of who you are. The fact is the difference between a $10,000 watch and a $17,000 watch is only the band, and for an engineer like me I don’t live in that world, that’s not my world.”
Slice Intelligence, which is led by a team of measurement industry executives, report that Apple Watch buyers in the US have pre-ordered more than 1 million units of wearable since it went live on April 10.
Reuters reports that Apple is expected to increase production of the Apple Watch so that they may meet high demand for the range of wearable devices. Reuters went on to report that customers who pre-ordered the product may have to wait between four and 10 weeks for their product.
Despite all the speculation of sales and crunching of numbers, maybe one of the most interesting factors at face value is that the Apple Watch was not released to crowds of campers waiting outside of Apple stores around the world, as is the norm with Apple products.
As reported however, Apple is under-stocked, having no product to offer those who may camp out for a watch.
According to Reuters, “At New York’s Fifth Avenue Apple store, dozens of customers crowded around watch displays and demos, even though they could not purchase the watch there.”
