“The Apple Watch will launch with a whisper rather than a bang on Friday,” Yasmeen Abutaleb reports for Reuters. “The company has not revealed how many orders it has received in the run-up to the April 24 launch, a contrast to previous launches of iPhones and iPads. And Apple stores will not have any watches to sell on Friday, even though some luxury shops around the world will.”
“Apple was unsure whether the watch would create the lines snaking around stores that the company has historically seen with its iPhones, said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray,” Abutaleb reports. “‘The smaller launch can allow them to see how it goes and it does remove some of the line expectation and risk,’ Munster said. ‘If they did it the old way and the lines weren’t good, that’s a bit of a problem.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Mischaracterizing this as a “smaller” launch is a mistake. This is not based on facts. We have no idea how many preorders Apple has taken.
“FBR Capital Markets senior analyst Daniel Ives raised his 2015 estimate to 20 million from 17 million, based in part on online order backlogs. ‘There was a question over whether the trajectory and demand for wearables in the Apple ecosystem was there and real,’ said Ives. ‘But it’s a resounding yes.’ Now Apple faces the question of whether confused consumers will swamp Apple Stores on Friday,” Abutaleb reports. “‘A lot of consumers are going to go to the store on Friday trying to buy a watch,’ he said.”
“In fact, the only watches on sale on Friday will be at a handful of upscale boutiques and department stores that Apple courted to help position the watch as a fashion item,” Abutaleb reports. “The Corner in Berlin, Maxfield in Los Angeles and Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London all say on their websites that they will have watches in store on April 24. Maxfield will open two hours earlier and is preparing for crowds.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Good luck, Apple Retail Store employees!
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