“BMO Capital Markets’s Keith Bachman reiterates an Outperform rating on shares of Apple, and a $135 price target, writing that his survey of consumers caused him to ratchet back expectations for the watch,” Tiernan Ray reports for Barron’s. “Bachman’s note follows largely positive reviews for the Watch in major publications on Wednesday morning.”
“BMO’s survey of 735 consumers through April 8th, a period in which Apple has been showing ads on TV, showed only 9% of people with an iPhone intend to buy the Apple Watch,” Ray reports, “while only 1% of people who don’t own an iPhone intend to buy on.”
“[Bachman wrote], ‘Given our survey results, we are lowering our Apple Watch estimate to 39 million units over the forecast period, or ~9% of our estimated iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 installed base. Consistent with our past comments, we believe that as applications for the Watch increase, we think that interest will likewise increase over time,'” Ray reports, Bachman notes 60% of those who intend to buy the device intend to buy one intend to buy the less-expensive $349 ‘Sport’ model, the rest will buy the steel versions, and one respondent said they intended to buy the ‘Edition’ model for $10,000 or more.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: That 9% is before Apple Watch lands on the wrists of friends and coworkers. That percentage will rise dramatically after Apple Watch launches.
Oh, by the way: In a survey of 3,489 people conducted in April 2007, two months before Apple launched something called the “iPhone,” ChangeWave found that 9% said they were likely to buy an iPhone once it became available.
Extrapolate.
Analysts who ignore history and misread data are poor predictors of future events.