“A new supply chain report out of Taiwan echoes a recent Bloomberg News story suggesting that HomePod sales have been lackluster, but as with most channel checks, it can be difficult to draw accurate conclusions,” Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors.
“The China Times claims that Apple has reduced its HomePod shipment forecast to 200,000 units or less per month in the second quarter, down from around 500,000 units per month in the first quarter, due to lower-than-expected sales,” Rossignol reports. “Apple is also said to revise down its shipment forecast for all of 2018.”
“The HomePod has yet to even launch outside of the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, so sales remain limited geographically,” Rossignol reports. “Apple said the speaker will launch in France and Germany later this spring.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You can’t miss the Christmas shopping season. A finally finished HomePod (with flawless multi-room audio and stereo paring out of the box) is a product for Christmas 2018 and beyond, not for the first three quarters of this year.
SEE ALSO:
Apple HomePod disappoints with weak sales after tardy debut that missed Christmas shopping season – April 12, 2018
Apple tumbles 24 spots – from 5th to 29th – in Harris Reputation Poll – March 13, 2018
Apple shakes up software development strategy to focus on quality – February 12, 2018
Apple on Mac flaw: ‘We apologize to all Mac users. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes.’ – November 29, 2017
Tim Cook’s sloppy, unfocused Apple rushes to fix a major Mac security bug – November 29, 2017
What to do about Apple’s shameful Mac security flaw in macOS High Sierra – November 29, 2017
Under ‘operations genius’ Tim Cook, product delays and other problems are no longer unusual for Apple – November 20, 2017
Apple’s desperate Mac Pro damage control message hints at a confused, divided company – April 6, 2017
On the future of Apple’s Macintosh – February 6, 2017
Apple is misplaying the hand Steve Jobs left them – November 30, 2016
Open letter to Tim Cook: Apple needs to do better – January 5, 2015
The delays and market traction loss of the Home pod is not great news, however the biggest worry how Siri, which had a lead with the intro of iPhone 4S lost out to Amazon and good voice assistants. Loss of Siri traction to competitors also mean Apple Car play and home pod is affected.
oops, meant google voice assistants, not good voice assistance
MDN is absolutely correct with this. I though bought 4 of these for myself already.
How is it that there are always negative Apple product supply chain leaks but never any for Amazon or Google? It seems rather unfair for Apple shareholders to always be the ones to get the bad news, especially if it’s going to impact Apple’s share price negatively.
Because Amazon and Google are doing far better that Apple is. Nothing negative about it.
When the CEO of the lowly phone company tries to design Mac line of products on iPad, this happens.
Cook, Ives and Ahrendts and all other fashionistas and social justice warriors with undeserved drain of Apple’s cash assets are driven out, the former glory of true Apple will finally come back.
Actually, I haven’t heard Ives being a major social justice warrior. It’s mainly Cook that’s always running his mouth off instead of building great products. Not sure about Ahrendts either. Never really followed her so I can’t comment on that.
Yes, you are correct if course. I was just saving too many words, bundling everyone together :-). But you know who is the real SJW. Other characters? To tell the truth, I have no idea what they are doing…. I know Ives was enthusiastic on chairs to outfit Apple’s spaceship venture.
The true SJW is Al Gore, not Steve J Wobs
It’s not about missing Christmas at all it’s about the fact that the speaker sounds good but nothing spectacular and Siri is terrible. Apple just continues to fall behind and there’s no reason for it other than the executive team is incompetent
Make you wonder if Apple thinks it is more important to have a cash pile over having enough product teams to cover every product they have for sale/support.
We are seeing many negatives about Apples recently, be it a failed super cycle of the overly hyped X, disappointing sales of HomePd or general decline (neglect?) of Mac line of products etc etc. Cook et al are not forward thinking and too carried away by the success of the iPhone and so much investment in iOS, hence becoming the money monger.
But things that people foresaw finally started happening. We are seeing the beginning of the inevitable decline of Apple as we used to know. One problem, among many, is Apple’s arrogant attitude of overpricing everything, which is related to their attitude to rely on and milk the captive market of royal Apple users like us, who were trapped in the tightly closed eco system. For one thing, the homePod is too reliant on iPhone.
Apple should not penalize longtime faithful customers by milking them (and consequently, people outside of Apple eco system won’t buy or even be interested in the HomePod or anything Apple, which makes Apple even more reliant on the captive market). If I see at least some effort by Apple to “reward” the captive market that has been supporting Apple, rather than milking us (but I do not know how), I might restore my hope and faith in Apple. As the phone market is becoming plateaued, so are our interest in the Apple. I am sure people are beginning to jump ship for good.
Siri is so goddamn awful I’ve stopped even trying and it’s stopped me investing in HomePod. If I hear ‘I’m really sorry about this…’ out of its electronic mouth ince more I might go Android. Apples speaker should be named HOHOHOmepod thanks to its launch.
Genuine question, can you please give some examples of questions you’re asking that Siri isn’t answering?
Sure:
“Hey Siri! How’s the new Mac Pro project coming along?”
I suggest that everyone literally ask Siri this, ten times per day going forward.
Sure.
I find it fairly bad at finding my music – a key feature. Maybe I like more unusual artists but I reckon 40% of the time it starts playing someone else. It’s occasionally funny.
The main issue I have though is simply its reliability. The ‘sorry’ quote happens often. Especially in the car or walking about. I also often find it cant connect to whatever server it needs. It could just be me but loads of time I miss the ‘beep’ and find I’m starting at the ‘thinking’ icon and it thinks I’ve said something. Way to tetchy.