Morgan Stanley: Apple iWatch could spark sales as high as $17.5 billion in first year

“Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at a new product category during the company’s earnings call last month,” Lance Whitney reports for CNET. “And Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty says she believes that category is most likely a wearable device.”

“Reports and rumors have run rampant about a possible smartwatch from the minds of Apple. If such a device does clock in this year, Huberty predicts that Apple could generate as much as $17.5 billion in revenue during the first 12 months,” Whitney reports. “That number assumes a price tag of $299 and a customer base similar to that for the iPad.”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
Apple said to be studying inductive, kinetic, and solar charging for ‘iWatch’ – February 3, 2014
iWatch + iOS 8: Apple sets out to redefine mobile health, fitness tracking – February 1, 2014

24 Comments

    1. My brokerage is Smith Barney, part of MS. Katy has been touting AAPL consistently for years. I do not know where you have gotten the idea you have of her. BTW she of course has been wrong saying Apple would go up while it has continued to drop.

  1. Lance Lance Lance, here’s a more solid prediction:
    After Apple reported it’s earnings the stock took a hit now you manipulators (so called analysts) will join in with the Whore Street journanalysts and pump the stock up with these pie in the sky ideas so that the stock will fall at the next earnings report.

    It’s your modus operandi, tacking on an analyst like Katy Hubety (a stock market analyst, not a technology one) and it’s clear by the verbage of garbage you put into your so called article.

    -Much rumored
    -Might add
    – believes
    – Assumes (trying to make an ass out of you and me).
    – Reports (link please or are you protecting your sorry ass, uh sorry sources).
    – Rumors, gosh resorting to rumors now, and calling yourself a journalist. A rumor monger is more appropriate.

    No facts here, all conjecture, more fuel for the rumor mill. Consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to add an eye of newt to your report and worry about getting burned at the stake.

    Hit whore.

  2. Pay no attention to the predicted end of the economic world in March by respected business gurus. Apple stock will mean nothing when the economy spins itself deep into the ground as the US government buries itself into deeper unpayable debt.

    The iWishing Whore Street will be blindsided as more than banksters will be committing suicide. Welcome to the new Depression.

    Then we will see who is iWatching who.

  3. And then every “Apple is doomed” analyst everywhere gets the stock crashing when it generates “only” 17 Billions, despite a mere watch earning more than the entire product lines of several competitors combined…

  4. It seems a bit premature to start announcing sales figures considering no one knows the features or selling price of this mythical iWatch. Even so, such high sales projections seem extremely optimistic considering everyone is coming out with smart-watches. I remember when I got my first LED watch and didn’t like it because the battery needed to be changed every few months. I guess a smart watch isn’t for me now that I’ve been using a Casio G-Shock Solar that hasn’t needed a battery change in years.

    I have definitely considered buying a fitness wrist-band for some time but I’ll wait to see what Apple has to offer. I honestly can’t see Apple’s iWatch becoming a runaway success because it will likely have a high price tag but who knows for sure. The more sensors it has might impress me but a short battery life would definitely be an annoyance. It would definitely need to tell me when the battery is running low or otherwise I’d forget to charge it.

    Some iWatch isn’t going to help boost Apple’s share price because there’s already too much smart-watch competition and Apple won’t have major market share. The iWatch will be immediately duplicated by Android manufacturers, then sold for half of what Apple charges and that will be the end of that as Wall Street’s doomsday scenario rears its ugly head again. I don’t see much hope for recent Apple shareholders ever getting back what they’ve lost over the past year or so unless Apple comes up with some product with features that absolutely can’t be copied.

  5. Huberty is correct if she is modeling the iWatch on iPad adoption #’s and assuming iWatch [sic] sold as a stand alone product. So immediately we see a problem – it’s prob. a companion product. The iPad uptake #’s – the fastest selling consumer device of all time – come directly from the iPhone Halo – so perhaps she’s not so far off.

    However, it is a companion product that may not be backwarrds compatible to the entire product line – it will most likely require the iPhone 5 or above (bluetooth 4.0 chip) – if it contains an M7 Chip it could be backwards compatible to the entire product line, but without the chip in iPhone 5 or above, bluetooth would run out the phone battery too quickly.

    So going with a total pool of 250,000,000 eligible phones, 1 in 5 owners would need to purchase this watch.

    If the watch is a sophisticated superhero power band like controller for Apple TV, iPad, iPhone and the Mac line – Katy easily hits her #’s.

    The price point is going to be a bit lower… seems to me that she just took the Samsung # and that was a fail.

  6. What a great job. Let’s project sales for an iWatch sight unseen. No idea what exists what might look like what it might do on and on. But we can estimate sales. I project 32 million dollars in slew for Apple whatamijig product

  7. Some recent discussion has focused on the possibility of an iWatch that could monitor blood sugar, heart rate, blood pressure, hydration, physical activity and more.

    So here are some yes/no questions:

    Could a diabetic who has to prick his or her finger every day (some every few hours) avoid that process by owning an iWatch?

    Could a person with hypertension use the iWatch to monitor spikes in blood pressure?

    Could someone who is dieting benefit from an iWatch that helps monitor caloric intake?

    Could an athlete or would-be athlete benefit from having a constant monitor of heart rate when he works out?

    Might doctors, hospitals, entire health-care systems benefit from an extensive log of monitoring history — generated by a relatively inexpensive and unobtrusive personal device — when evaluating a patient’s health?

    If iWatch provides a “yes” to each of these questions, $17.5 billion is going to look conservative.

    It’s a big world, filled with people who are getting older and heavier. But they WANT to get healthier. And iWatch can help.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.