“Apple Watch pre-orders started with a bang and Apple’s initial inventory quickly sold out,” Dan Frommer reports for Quartz. “Then US orders immediately fell, and have remained mostly flat since, according to analysis from Slice Intelligence, a company that tracks US consumer spending through e-commerce email receipts.”
“Apple has taken orders for almost 2.5 million watches in the US through Monday, May 18, according to Slice’s projections, which are based on more than 14,000 online shoppers,” Frommer reports. “More than half of those orders were placed on April 10, the first day Apple accepted watch pre-orders in the US and eight other countries, according to Slice.”
“Since the first day… US orders have generally remained under 30,000 per day, according to Slice’s projections,” Frommer reports. “One Wall Street analyst, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty, recently increased her projection of first-year global Apple Watch shipments to 36 million, based on survey results showing increased purchase intentions among US consumers… To reach 36 million shipments, Apple would need to average almost 100,000 per day worldwide.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course there was a surge of orders from the innovators and the early adopters. For any successful product, there usually is.
The Apple Watch supply problem has caused a pause. Most of those early adopters are still just getting or haven’t even received their Apple Watches yet. So the third wave, the early majority, haven’t yet experienced their impetus to go get/order their Watches: Seeing them in use on the wrists of the innovators/early adopters. Plus, the well-publicized lack of demand (no availability for a month or longer) also causes the next wave to pause. They can’t get them online or in stores, so in their minds, there’s no rush.
Therefore, Apple Watch is in pause mode until the early adopters get their Watches, show them off, and until Apple actually gets Watches into retail stores so that people can actually buy them and walk out with them.