“The Apple Watch won’t supplant venerable luxury timepiece makers, but everyday fashion watch makers are in trouble, two former retail executives said Monday,” Matthew J. Belvedere reports for CNBC.
“‘The fine, luxury watches, they’re being hurt right because of the euro,’ not because of the Apple Watch, former Saks Chairman and CEO Steve Sadove told CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ in an interview. ‘Fashion watches are taking a hit right now. That’s sort of a trend we’re seeing,'” Belvedere reports. “‘That watch business, which was great for the last six years, was slowing down before the [Apple Watch],’ retail consultant and ex-department store executive Jan Kniffen said. ‘This is the nail in the coffin, the new Apple Watch.'”
“‘The real market is the $300 to $600 watch. That’s what they’re [Apple] really trying to win,’ continued the J. Rogers Kniffen Worldwide Enterprises CEO,” Belvedere reports. “‘Angela Ahrendts, the ex-Burberry head who’s at Apple, has done a great job of treating [the Apple Watch] as luxury launch as opposed to a mass launch,’ Sadove said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Once your live with the Apple Watch, you’re not going to be taking it off for anything. If you want to wear your Rolex, you’ll wear it in addition to your Apple Watch. For the under $1,000 “fashion watch,” there is no worse news than Apple Watch. With Apple Watch, there is now no reason to buy a “fashion watch.”
The automobile is simply not in the same market as a horse and carriage. Horses are all about showmanship and thoughtful, hands-on training. Carriages are about craftsmanship, tradition, and pride of ownership.
A lot of people will of course buy cars, but at the high end of the market people are not going to stop buying horses and carriages for mass-market automobiles.
Not too many horses and carts in sight Mon-Fri in the city.
Did I really have to use the /s tag?
Really?
I agree with MDN. I think even luxury watches are going to take a big hit. Fashion level watches might just disappear completely in a few years.
Reminds me of War of the Worlds. “Once they land, we just don’t hear anything from that area again.”
Nice to see Ahrendts get some credit for a change rather than get blamed because Watches aren’t available for purchase in the stores.
I was in Wal Mart the other day and walking past the digital watch display and it hit me that those digital watches are exactly the same as the digital watches I was wearing in high school 20 years ago. They haven’t changed a bit. Not in form, not in function. The have the same screens and the same interfaces that they did 20 years ago.
It also struck me how much more advanced my Apple Watch is than any of those other watches. It’s like comparing an iPhone 6 to a 1990s cell phone. Apple is going to own the digital watch market, simply because the other players in the market haven’t innovated in 20 years.
The launch under Angela Ahrendts was a horror. Anybody that has seen the comments on any number of blogs complain about the mess this debut was. The success is a testament to the product created by Jony Ive and his team. It succeeds in spite of the so called launch.
Ms Ahrendts has nothing to do with Apple Watch supply constraints. Ms Ahrendts had nothing to do with the faulty taptic engine that set Apple Watch production back two weeks. All of that falls on Tim Cook and whoever the Chief Operating Officer of Apple is these days.
Ms Ahrendts has done a phenomenal job doing exactly what she was hired to do: Make the Apple Watch a desired luxury fashion item. She’s gotten Apple Watches onto the wrists of Beyonce, Kanye West, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Christie Turlington, Drake, JJ Abrams, among others. Say what you want about how foolish celebrity worship is, but this product placement has been worth more than a thousand television ads.
I don’t know about that. It wasn’t the smoothest, but Retail did the best they could given the circumstances. You can’t blame the head of retail for a lack of product.
Besides, having too many available too early would have been a sub-optimal launch too. Luxury thrives on scarcity.
Apple understands EXTREMELY well what people want: exclusivity. Why do people stand in lines to get Apple products? Because they will have those products when others can’t get them. Why do wealthy people buy beachfront property? Because there is not enough of it for everyone to have. Why does Lamborghini exist when a Chevy does the same thing? Why are there country clubs? Why is there discrimination? “Because I can have something, and you cannot.”
That is why there are not enough Watches to go around. Not being able to have something makes you want it even more.
As has been explained many times Apple Watch availability was not Ahrendts fault. Best laid plans. Parts supplier for the haptic engine didn’t come through. Obviously if even one part is not available to build a watch it stops the complex process cold.
This “take no prisoners and prosecute the innocent” view on a product launch with a huge in-demand product is completely disingenuous. If there are going to be hiccups it’s usually on initial rollout of a new popular device. In a few more months only the Apple Haters will bring it up again. Nothing to see here. The good news is this shakeout is occurring well before the 2015 Christmas season.
People also forget that Apple no longer has the luxury of slowly ramping up production of a new product to work out the bugs in the process. iPhone 1 took 3 months to sell one million units. By all accounts Apple Watch sold a million in a few hours.
Couple that with the fact when a brand new Apple product category launches, it always only launches in one size, one hardware finish, and one color. Apple Watch launched in 2 sizes, 3 finishes and 6 colors. And that doesn’t include the band. When the book is written about the Apple Watch launch, it’ll be clear that this was the most complicated product launch in Apple’s history.
Fashion is highly mutable and often flouts common sense and comfort. Nonetheless, I doubt that wearing two devices on your wrist will become the norm.
If people become dependent on their Apple Watches, then MDN is right – the Apple Watch will tend to displace other watches from the low end and high end, functional and fashion alike.
Wearing two watches is kinda stupid. Like the Swiss banks, I see function winning this one.
Look at a picture of the postage stamp “city” of components inside the Apple Watch…WiFi, Bluetooth, memory and processor chips, taptic engine, LED’s, gyroscope, sensors, etc. …a whole different ballgame.
You are absolutely right about that. Strip off the band, the screen, the metal housing and the battery, and what you’re left with is a whole computer on a single chip. The S1 chip is the processor, the RAM, the storage, the networking, the sound, graphics, wifi, bluetooth, gyroscope, accelerometer, proximity sensor, haptic processor…all in something that’s about the size of your fingernail! You could swallow it! If I didn’t know better I’d think Apple stole this technology from a crashed alien spaceship.
I think I found the crash site. https://twitter.com/Sky1Ron/status/597854651585724417/photo/1
No, she has not. Apple should pay out 100% of the profits in dividends. Now before you start talking nonsense, writing, about how you would rather apple keep the money and use it on research and development, realize that apple owns share, and when it pays that dividend threshers apple owns gets the dividend. The more shares apple has the less money goes out of apple. Guess what, apple is buying more apple shares. Plus R&D are in the cost already, profit is what’s made after such expenditures. If you are an employee at and with 2000 share, and the company is pay a 3.00 dividend per quarter, that’s an extra 24,000 dollars a year. Can you imagine what those with 100,000 share bring in, 300,000 dollars per quarter $1,200,000.00 per year. That is a better situation for everyone. who would dare sell their shares. That would drive the share price way up. Only people hurt by this pay out, brokers. Nobody would sell their shares. Brokers make money on the buying and sell of shares. So guess who would really be against this.
What about the money apple would need to do R&D, they have shares, they received a dividend, they can use that money. Any reason not to?
Me, me, me. It’s all about me! A person with your financial insight would struggle to run a lemonade stand on a residential street. You likely would drink most of the product before you even got three sales.
Broker are you? Work in the financial industry,hey? Even you would benefit. Every company should pay out those profits to the shareholder, you know, the owners of the company. Think what you 401K would look like. Instead of you continually using your salary, you my friend could use the profits from the stocks you hold to buy more, bank the money, put money into an annuity, or in your case go get you 5th or 6th car. Or better yet make me an offer on my failing lemonade stand.
You, well, workers would work harder, they would truly look to save money. Why? Because it would show up as a bigger profit, and being that they own shares, more money in their pockets through the dividend pay out. But you don’t see that, huh?
I get it. Not everybody wants their money, that’s ok, too. I would not force you to take it.
I’m in Switzerland right now, and I can tell you that the prestigious Swiss watch brands–IWC, Tissot, Breitling, Omega, Hublot, etc–have nothing to fear with the Apple Watch. These Swiss watches belong to a completely different category, and cater to a very different clientele. Prices for the standard watches are in the $2000-$4000 price range, and they quickly go up to well over $10,000. A $400 Apple watch is a toy for this market segment, one that is a geeky gadget and not to be taken seriously. These watch makers are chuckling at these reports of the Swiss watch industry being threatened, for them they welcome the attention that Apple has focused on the watch as a personal accessory.
I guess the guilded carriage makers were saying the same thing about the Model T.
I remember the Finns saying that about Nokia in 2007.
The clientele for Swiss Heritage Watches is dying off. Their sons and daughters will want a watch that does more than just tell time. The Heritage Watch will perhaps be displayed somewhere in the home as a reminder of life ‘before the Watch Edition.’ 🖖😀⌚️
Steve Balmer chuckled a lot when he was talking about the new iPhone, too. It’s always fun to see arrogance knocked down.
Disagree. First to clarify I have everything Apple. From iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, 4 Mac, to Time Capsule, several old iPods,etc.
I got the watch but after 3 days I am getting rid of it. Feels like a gimmick. Does not add value to anything I do. Tiny screen, delicate, confusing interface, horrible UI, uncomfortable plastic strap. It just duplicates stuff I can do more comfortable in my 6+.
Its only value prop it to not to take the phone from my pocket.
Plus is another device to charge daily. Perhaps some things are not meant to be smart. Honestly it was more of an annoyance than useful.
I am sorry to say Apple Watch will not be the end of anything.
It will sell very well but compared to iPhone it will be a flop. It is not the next big thing by any means.
Not to the cheap pedometers, GPS sport watches or regular watches or luxury watches.
Instead I am getting the Garmin fenix 3. Not for the bad smartwatch features but for the sport features.
Perhaps the next model will be the one. This one is a beta with no clear focus on anything.
BTW, don’t get me started with the horrible keyboard of the new macbook. Need higher products standard. This obsession with thinner stuff is getting ridiculous. Get us better battery and better keyboards…not worse !
So full of crap, poor soul.
What an un-intelligent, un-productive remark. You must be 12
Would be great if you contribute something productive / an idea or thought. Like why you find the Apple Watch so relevant in your own terms and why you think with your own usage pattern that you think I am wrong.
Bah, wasting my time. You must be really be 12