“When we asked analysts last September to estimate how many Apple Watches the company would sell in calendar 2015, the average was 22.6 million,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune. “That figure included one estimate — Katy Huberty’s 60 million (!) bull case scenario — that she hasn’t mentioned since.”
“The analyst’s estimates we’ve seen range from 8 million to 41 million,” P.E.D. reports. “Average: 2.5 million per month.”
See all of the analysts’ estimates in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck with “estimates” when all you have until next week is one base price and myriad questions from launch date to country rollout to on and on and on… Too many variables.
“Analysts’ 2015 Apple Watch sales estimates are all over the map” makes a lot of sense, it’s just like the analysts brains, all over the map. Makes quite a mess.
Remember to rinse after each brain washing.
It really doesn’t matter what the analysts’ estimates for this year. Any sales will be accretive to Apple’s Revenue and EPS.
What I’m looking for is Gartner’s and IDC’s sales estimates, AFTER THE FACT, are for the June quarter. For all of 2014 total “smart watch/fitness device” sales were 720,000 units, with an ASP of ~$170. If Apple were to sell more than that in its launch quarter, with prices starting at 2X all others’ ASP, then the Apple Watch is an unmitigated success.
For comparison to other launch quarter results, the iPhone sold 1.119 million units in its first full quarter of sales, and look where it is today. Apple Watch’s sales curve is far more important than actual units sold.
Yes, I think the first few quarters of watch sales will tell the story. Certainly this speculation tells a much different story, but hey you know how facts and modern day jouranalism is like oil and water.
I look forward to seeing the results of the new watch.
This will be fun!
There is so much negativity regarding the Watch I can’t believe it. Obviously I am totally in the bull camp and can’t wait to see the results. I have never been more confident that this will be a barn burner and sell not only a boat load of Watches but iPhones as well.
Hell, this will be more than fun!
What is the point of mentioning the average of every analyst’s guess ? Not one of them can reasonably claim to have any credible insight into how many will be sold, so the average of lots of random guesses means nothing. The range between the lowest and the highest guess is more than 5x, so there is clearly no consensus.
Hey, lack of facts has NEVER kept an analyst from voicing an opinion before. Why should the Apple Watch be any different?
The perpouse of analysts is not to base things on fact..but to talk through their arsss …hence the title!
It’s easier to estimate how many Apple can produce in 2015, at maximum production capacity. Because the number Apple can produce 2015 is the number Apple will sell.
if the watch pairs with wireless bluetooth headphones, then it is going to sell 30 million. Otherwise, it will sell 15 million.
How’s that analysis?
The Apple Watch is a peripheral to a peripheral in the form of a product, a watch, that most people stopped buying years ago. It also is a thing with a one or two year life span in the form of a product that people, back when they bought watches, were used to getting 5-10 years of use from, at a price level where 30-40 years of use was considered normal.
On the other hand, the Watch does things no watch has done before, has a new UI, and, like the iPhone, what the Apple Watch does now is only a subset of what it will do a year from now.
So how could estimating sales figures for it be anything other than pure guesswork?
The only legitimate data point was Tim Cook’s statement several weeks ago that he expects the Apple Watch to follow the original iPon growth path.
For the iPod that was modest sales at first, followed by significant growth, then finally taking over the market so thoroughly that people started using the term iPod as a generic term for personal, digital music players (along the lines of Kleenex for facial tissues, Xeroxing something, you have a Thermos bottle, you use a Crescent wrench on that nut, etc.).
While there is a bit of a pent up demand from the Apple faithful (and they do exist) resulting in large first weekend and first week sales, I agree with Tim that the long term sales growth likely will be a “slow and steady wins the race” kind of affair.