“KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi Kuo revealed his predictions for Apple’s much-rumored iWatch, which may ship as soon as the third quarter of 2014,” Juli Clover reports for MacRumors. “According to Kuo, the iWatch will come in two separate sizes to accommodate different sized wrists: 1.3 inches and 1.5 inches. Multiple sizes for the device were first predicted in late 2013, though the original rumor pointed towards displays of 1.3 and 1.7 inches. Both watches will include flexible AMOLED displays with sapphire covers to protect the device from scratches. ”
“Kuo suggests Apple will release the iWatch at multiple price points and in a variety of materials, competing with low and high-end watches alike,” Clover reports. “At the high end, Kuo suggests Apple’s iWatch could sell for thousands of dollars. ‘Fashion is the name of the game; most expensive model likely priced at several thousand US dollars. Referring to the rules of the fashion market, we predict the iWatch casing and band will come in various materials. The most expensive model of the iWatch line will carry a price tag of several thousand US dollars.'”
“Apple’s iWatch is not expected until the end of the year, but Kuo believes it will be the most important product of 2014, outshining even the iPhone 6,” Clover reports. “He is estimating shipments of 5.5 million units in 2014, which will rise to 30 to 50 million units in 2015.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Wow, such fantastic speculation. Thousands of dollars? Pull the other one!
You have two?
the other leg! technically I have 3!
Or pinky. I only have two.
@althegeo
I have a donger you can pull on you dirty Canuck.
Do I need to bring my own pepper and tweezers?
High end wrist watches are over several thousand dollars and they are still in business. Eg.Rolex, Omega, Cartier, and many many more. So there is a limited market for those.
Yes, they are, but not at the sales volumes this Analyst is predicting. It must be nice to make a living where you get paid serious money from investors for making shit up.
Rolex sells 4.5 billion dollars worth of watches each year.
Swatch/Omega sells 8.8 billion dollars worth.
The number of Swiss watches sold annually is, 29,200,000. The average cost is 739-dollars.
The number of Chinese/Hong Kong watches sold annually is, 1,017,000,000 with an average cost of 3-dollars.
The watch market is a 60-billion dollar industry and Apple thinks it can acquire a nice slice of it.
I think they can capture 5-to-10-percent within two-to-three years.
Cue the incumbents bleating about how they have been in the watch business for several hundred years and its laughable that a computer company can learn the complexity of combining a bunch of finely tuned brass cogs in one of two.
I know. However, something good has to be said for a fine Swiss mechanical watch.
Many have over 350 individual pieces of precision-made metals but I suspect those who can truly appreciate their competence are no longer with us.
Those days of fathers passing a timepiece down to their sons, like the wedding dress to mothers and daughters, is no longer a value, I suspect.
translation: pulling someone’s leg is a british expression for trying to put something over on another person that is blatantly not believable. Often shortened to ‘Pull the other one’!
http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/Pull+the+other+one+!
not to be confused with ‘going on the pull!”
slang for going out to pub to pick up a bird or a skirt!
Your bars sell pets and women’s clothing?
I will assume you are joking! If so, well played!
Thousands of dollars?
Rolex sells a 75,000-dollar Oyster and all it does is tell time, plus some other nautical and aeronautical stuff.
Apple will sell their watch for whatever the market will bear. Those who buy Rolex, do so because it’s a status thing.
I believe Apple can sell to the high-end watch market, which is a 60- BILLION dollar market.
I think you’re correct – there’s no reason other than Apple’s own motivation that the iWatch components could not be put into a very high-end case/band combination to sell alongside Rolex, Cartier, etc.
What most people forget is that high-end watches are men’s jewelry, much as necklaces and bracelets are for women. So adorn it with diamonds, gold, etc. and you have a showpiece that celebrities and the wealthy will trip over themselves to buy.
So adorn it with diamonds, gold, etc. and you have a showpiece that celebrities and the wealthy will trip over themselves to buy.
Apple will not manufacture a diamond encrusted, or gold iWatch but somebody will and they’ll make money.
I also believe someone will develop enclosures for iWatch, not unlike the protective cases for iPhone. iWatch enclosures could provide waterproofing, comfort, as well as extend the functionality of the wrist watch in different atmospheres.
This will be the driving factor behind the revenue of a watch from Apple; the third-party development will add much more value than a product like Swatch, which is the largest manufacturer of Swiss timepieces.
I predict Rolex, et. al., will make a product similar to iWatch and charge $75,000 per copy.
Let’s not forget liquid metal. A liquid metal sapphire screen iWatch would be pretty cool.
I would buy iWatch if it made in U.S.A., not China
couple of things: your bad grammar, and fact that you must have no watch at all, since none are made in USA. You need to spend more time looking at the fine print on all of your stuff as to location of manufacture. For example, how are you able to post to this forum, since no computers are actually ‘made’ in USA?
If the iWatch is thousands of dollars…all I can afford to do is WATCH!
No one will buy an I watch for thousands of dollars.
Ig that’s their price point then it’s dead even before launch.
You are so full of hot air, you should explode at any second. 😛
Really, probably because I’m a Brading consultant that has turned an oil company into a global energy business, have won creative awards beating the Porsche design teams and created a campaign that sold hundreds of millions of packets of beach ache pills in the middle eastern market – oh and I forgot to mention that I have made several clients multi-millionaires.
Apple is a premium tech brand BUT they have no presence in the high end watch sector.
Apple won’t do a ‘watch’ anyway. It will be a device that extends the iOS Eco-system.
It will probably be a device that can be used for all sorts of functions – think the Nike fuel band on steroids with an App Store and you’re easing in the right direction.
“…BUT they have no presence in the high end watch sector.”
Would that be similar to how they had no presence in the mobile sector… or the tablet sector… or the portable music player sector?
At one point they had no presence in the home computer market.
I will agree out that Woz and Jobs were inspired by the Altair computers when they invented the Apple I motherboard.
http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
However, the Apple ][ was technically the first ‘personal computer’, aka PC.
What does a Brading consultant do exactly?
Brading consultants:
– Don’t spell very well.
– Write multi-clause sentence with grammatical structures that are not parallel.
– Writes sixty word sentences.
– Uses dashes inappropriately, instead of periods.
– Writes about mysterious products such as “beach ache pills”.
– Doesn’t use commas appropriately, either putting them where they are not needed or not putting them where they are.
– Puts unnecessary capitals in the middle of sentences.
Overkill, when simply playing the Knave of Trumps would have sufficed
Rolex? Tag Heur?
No one? I’ll wager dollars to donuts Rolex will begin developing a line of watches to copy Apple, just to prevent Apple from encroaching into their market.
Partner with Rolex and let them sell the expensive version.
Some will definitely buy a high dollar, unique Apple device.
The question is the iPhone 5c question “who wants to be seen wearing second best?” I’m not a Rolex customer. I’m also not a mid-tier watch customer. The watch I wear tells very accurate time, is water resistant for any exposure I expect and it is a toss up whether I replace the battery or buy a new watch every couple of years. So far new batteries are winning.
I doubt if Apple will bring a very high end device to create a new product category. They need to keep the customers decision simple, “buy or not buy”. It will be more like the iPod, iPhone and iPad at introduction. Four versions at most, at two price points with important functional differences between the price points.
I think.
Same here, I would never buy a Rolex. I don’t like the look.
I prefer something very modern, made from space age materials with a minimalistic design that is unobtrusive and only shows the function you need to see.
It needs to be a slim form factor, that is both elegant and masculine – metro-sexual as it were.
I’m ordering the version with the teleporter.
That’s so last year
You need to go with the remote detonator
What mind numbing stupidity.
Stop putting yourself down…
Sounds like those predictions of the ultra expensive Apple tablet before the iPad debuted at a very reasonable $499. This seems like an idea borne of the whole “Apple tax” stereotype. I can’t see them making a watch for even $1000. They’re not that kind of company.
Totally agree. Apple these days wants everyone using their devices.
It’s the only way a company of that size can grow.
Big BS, why pay several thousand and after one year, it’s old stupid
IWatch ! Go buy a Rolex and after 5years or more , same model is
Still selling with higher price. STUPID BATTERY IWATCH FOR
SEVERAL THOUSAND!
The high end model comes with a 5.5″ display…
Thousands of dollars? Someone must be on crack thinking that’s an acceptable or attainable price point.
I purchased the Pebble when it was on Kickstarter, and got hosed. My pebble broke within the first week of wearing it and was never given any recourse from the company. It took a slight tap from an elevator door closing prematurely to crack the e-paper display underneath the watch cover. I was told it was ‘normal wear and tear’ after having it less than seven days.
I’m not interested in investing in another watch right now. Its an expensive toy, considering all the Pebble can do. The iWatch by Apple better merge a lot better with Siri and other iOS devices to be purchased by me, and even then I’ll be leery for some time to come.
When it is not broken….
If the high-end version is an absolutely gorgeous product, I would gladly spend $1,000+ for it — extra points if it were self-winding, though I don’t see how that would generate enough power. Oddly enough, the less functionality it has, the more I would likely spend, the reasoning being that I would be more inclined to spend money on something that won’t soon be outdated.
Do you think they would actually try to sell a watch that equals the price of the new Mac Pro? NOT!!!! It has to be a mass market device to sell well.
Everyone laughed at the iPod when it came out, because it was “too expensive” (among other reasons).
Everyone laughed at the iPod mini, remember? It was “too expensive”.
Myself, I can’t see why I would want an expensive smartwatch. What could it possibly do to be worth that much. But, I thought the same thing about the original iPod, and the iPhone, before I actually saw the products. I’ve since purchased both.
Long story short, until you actually see the iWatch (and I mean at the store, not just in pictures), don’t assume you understand what it’s really worth.
——RM
The biggest hurdle apple has to face in its marketing of this ‘iwatch’ will be convincing people to start wearing watches again.
People under 30 don’t really wear watches.
People under 30 don’t really wear watches.
?
Actually, I’ve heard the opposite. Mind you, they’re wearing them more as fashion pieces than to tell the time, so it’s essential that the device look awesome.
——RM
I visualise the product not as a wristwatch per se, but as a general fashion accessory with purpose. Fashion is coming into its own with respect to technology. Once tech was concealed as workstations hidden beneath desks. Now, it begins to live within proud adornment. The merging of two disparate human spheres of conduct has never been predictable, but I am amused to observe that silly people continue to pretend that it is.
Thousands of dollars each (at the high end, of course) and on the order of two hundred or so on the low end?
Kind of puts my 30 year old $30 Casio to shame (though it’s been performing marvelously every day for those 30 years with the usual stopwatch, alarm, trip, etc. functions used almost daily).
My biggest issue in his claims for the “iWatch” is that the battery life will be “at least a day”. This is ludicrously short for a watch. People are not going to be *required* to charge their watch every night. Three days is probably the minimum realistic time and the classic “8 day clock” type duration is much more reasonable. (You don’t need the 9+ years I’ve gotten out of each battery with my old Casio.)
My biggest issue in his claims for the “iWatch” is that the battery life will be “at least a day”
How about never running out of battery power?
If Apple introduces ambient (wireless) recharging for iDevices using electromagnetic radio waves to keep our batteries topped off, Nikola Tesla will be smiling down on us all.
The problem with the article is that there is no ASP (average sales price) for non-luuxry iWatches. Then there would be less uproar.
Sounds like Samdung or Froogle putting out rumors once again to deter anyone from buying an Apple product to me!!
At the high end, Kuo suggests Apple’s iWatch could sell for thousands of dollars. ‘Fashion is the name of the game’…
The phrase ‘hair brained analyst’ comes to mind. Filler crap to fill the day.
It’s ‘hare-brained’ — referring to rabbit intelligence. Your kindly tutor requires no thanks.
I don’t see why I should want one….
I dont have a watch for several years as I have my iPhone always with me. I don’t see me wear anything on my wrist….even if it is from Apple.
I dont think Apple is gonna be succesfull with this one….
I’m wearing a 8100-dollar Rolex on my wrist right now. I also own 3 other watches worth more than $4K each. I would not buy an iWatch that cost more than $500 USD regardless of functionality.
Are you bragging or complaining?
I should have clarified. My point is that the people who are claiming that Rolex buyers will leap to purchase a multi-thousand dollar iWatch have probably never spent a lot on a watch themselves. I don’t agree that high-end watch buyers will spend comparable amounts on an iWatch. There are many reasons people invest in watches, and a main reason is that watches typically are solid investments. There is no way an iWatch will hold it’s value like a Rolex, JLC, AP, PP, etc…
You would do better investing in something other than a watch!
like what?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/10552806/Classic-cars-and-watches-beat-traditional-stocks.html