“‘We made a decision back to September not to disclose the shipments of the watch,’ Mr Cook told investors on Tuesday. ‘That was not a matter of not being transparent. It was a matter of not giving our competition insight on a product we’ve worked hard on,'” Dave Lee reports for The BBC. “Many aren’t buying that explanation. But let’s look at what Apple did tell us.”
“Apple has lumped the watch in its ‘other’ category that includes the iPod, Beats accessories, Apple TV and so on. Compared to the previous quarter – before the gadget went on sale – the ‘other’ category is up 56%, with quarterly revenue of $2.6bn,” Lee reports. “But Mr Cook urged against [napkin math] to determine watch sales. ‘It would not be be an accurate thing to look at the sequential change and assume that was the watch revenue,’ he said.”
“Parts of the category, such as the iPod, are in decline, making a precise number hard to isolate until Apple feels compelled to tell us,” Lee reports. “Having canvassed several analysts, the general wisdom is that Apple has sold between 2.5 million and 3 million watches… ‘Sales of the watch did exceed our expectations and they did so despite supply trailing demand at the end of the quarter,’ he said. To back this up, Mr Cook said sales in June were higher than in April or May, seemingly putting to bed some reports that sales had fallen off a cliff. Analysts agreed that was a good sign for future sales.”
Whatever estimates u have for the AppleWatch 1 thing is for sure, Apple sold more Watches in 2Q15 than all other smartwatch vendors combined
— Francisco Jeronimo (@fjeronimo) July 21, 2015
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: During the conference call, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the Apple Watch sold more units in its first 9 weeks of availability than the iPhone (one million units) or the iPad (three million units) in their first nine weeks, so Apple Watch has sold more than 3 million units to date. The total number of Watch sales is significantly higher today as the quarter ended nearly a month ago on June 27, 2015 and the product has actually been available for purchase throughout that period, as supply finally started to flow to retail stores starting in mid-June.
The actual number doesn’t really matter at this stage. The first two months of the Apple Watch launch was horribly curtailed by supply issues (reportedly Taptic Engines that failed to pass Apple’s muster). Apple Watch is a product that requires strong word-of-mouth from early adopters to move to the next phase. That can’t happen if the early adopters are on months-long waiting lists. Once the product finally gets out there on people’s writs and people begin hearing about it/seeing it in action, the next phase can begin.
For now, it’s simply too early and the launch supply was too hampered to draw any firm conclusions except that we know that those who have the Watch, love the Watch. We have had Apple Watches on our wrists for the last three months and we will never go back to the primitive days of not wearing an Apple Watch.
Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses Apple Watch, July 21, 2015:
Let me talk about the Watch some. As you know, we made a decision back in September, quite several months ago not to disclose the shipments on the Watch and that was not a matter of not being transparent, it was a matter of not giving our competition insight that’s a product that we’ve worked really hard on. However, let me give you some color so to avoid reaching sort of a wrong conclusion. If you look at the other products category and look at the revenue in this category, it would not be an accurate thing to just look at the sequential change or the year over year change and assume that were the total Watch revenue because the aggregate balance of that category, both sequentially and year over year, is shrinking. Obviously iPod is a part of that, but there are other things in there, accessories and so forth, that are shrinking.
Secondly to provide a bit more color, sales of the Watch did exceed our expectations and they did so despite supply still trailing demand at the end of the quarter. And to give you a little additional insight, through the end of the quarter, in fact the Apple Watch sell-through was higher than the comparable launch periods of the original iPhone or the original iPad. And we were able to do that with having only 680 points of sale. And as you probably know, as I had reviewed earlier, the online sales were so great at the beginning, we were not able to feed inventory to our stores until mid-June. And so those points of sale pretty much, the overwhelming majority of the low numbers of sales were not there until the last two weeks of the quarter… Our June sales were higher than April or May. I realize that’s very different than what some of the, is being written, but the June sales were the highest. And so the Watch had a more of a back-ended kind of a skewing.
And so as I look at all of these things, we feel really great about how we did. Now our objective for the quarter wasn’t primarily sales. Beyond the very good news on sales, we’re more excited about how the product is positioned for the long term because we’re starting a new category. And as I back up and look at this, we have 8,500 apps. We’ve already announced the next operating system, watchOS 2. It will bring native apps which are going to be killer to the Watch. Even though the store layout was delayed, we’ve learned a lot about the buying experience. Based on that experience, we’re now planning to expand our channel before the holiday because we’re convinced that the Watch is going to be one of the top gifts of the holiday season.
Now most importantly of all of this is that customer sat is off the charts because we’ve constantly seen if you can get the customer sat off the charts you can wind up doing fairly well over time. We’ve also learned a lot about managing quite an assortment and so forth. And so I sort of back up and look at this and I feel fantastic about what the team has done and delivered and I know I never go anywhere without the Watch and it’s not because I’m the CEO of Apple. I’m that attached to it and I get lots of notes from a lot of people that feel the same way. And so that’s how I look at the Watch.
SEE ALSO:
Three months with Apple Watch convinces me it’s the best Apple product I’ve ever purchased – July 21, 2015
Non-techies love their Apple Watches even more than tech users – July 20, 2015
Apple Watch satisfaction is unprecedented at 97%; beats original iPhone and iPad – July 20, 2015
Taking off the Apple Watch for one week – don’t ever make me do that again! – July 14, 2015
My week without Apple Watch – July 7, 2015
The Inquirer reviews Apple Watch: ‘Undoubtedly the best smartwatch’ – June 26, 2015
Newt Gingrich reviews Apple Watch: ‘Very helpful and surprisingly natural’ – June 19, 2015
One month with my Apple Watch: Why I’m loving it – June 17, 2015
Dalrymple reviews Apple Watch: ‘My most personal review ever’ – June 16, 2015
Apple Watch: 45 days later – June 8, 2015
Computerworld’s deep-dive Apple Watch review: ‘After a month of use: Very positive’ – June 8, 2015
Workout and Activity accuracy – June 4, 2015
Living with Apple Watch: One month in – June 3, 2015
Apple Watch: The early adopter’s take – June 1, 2015
Jean-Louis Gassée: Five weeks with Apple Watch – May 31, 2015
Ben Thompson: Apple Watch is being serially underestimated – May 20, 2015
BGR reviews Apple Watch: ‘A major technological achievement; you won’t want to take it off’ – May 7, 2015
The Telegraph reviews Apple Watch: Object of desire – May 7, 2015
Cult of Mac reviews Apple Watch: ‘Futuristic, fun and fan-flipping-tastic’ – April 28, 2015
PC Magazine reviews Apple Watch: ‘The best smartwatch available’ – April 28, 2015
Apple Watch owners shame so-called professional reviewers – April 27, 2015
Tech.pinions’ Ben Bajarin reviews Apple Watch: ‘Powerful’ and ‘completely new’ – April 8, 2015
I suspect one reason that Apple might not want everyone to know how many watches it has sold is because they don’t want people to know how successful the Apple Watch Edition is. If they are making a ton of money selling $10,000 watches, they would love to keep that market to themselves for as long as possible. Likewise, if it’s a bust, they might prefer other companies to find out on their own.
I would guess it’s wildly, wildly successful.
Even after they start giving the quarterly AW unit sales number, Apple will likely never break out AW unit sales per model. That information is too valuable. They don’t do it with iPhone or iPad. They won’t do it with AW, either.
Importantly the last thing they want to do is tell the traditional watch makers (particularly the high end) just how valuable a market middle and top end Apple watches are otherwise they will be jumping on the band wagon with Android help thinking their name will get them a share. Let them work it out and take the risk themselves as Apple did.
I wish I could understand the obsession with Watch sales figures. They sold a ton…..end of story. Its a fantastic product…..end of story. And its going to be better shortly, and sell even more….end of story.
I own two now: one silver Watch Sport, and one Watch with the Milanese band. And I will be buying shortly a Space Gray Watch Sport. I love my Apple Watches, and will never go back to the old daily wear watches I own.
Relax people…..the Watch is a hit.
I presume you have one iPhone. If you want to switch
watches, don’t you have to unpair one and pair the other
which is a bitch as it takes about 9 minutes.
I do have only one iPhone….6+…..and I do have to unpair one and then pair the other. It does take about 10 minutes. And to me its no big deal at all. I either do it the night before I need one over the other, or in the morning while I’m getting ready for work.
Its an easy process, its no real time to do it, and as a nice benefit, the watch I’m unpairing is back up to the iPhone. And since I’m restoring the same configuration back to the other Watch, they function the same. I lose nothing. I gain flexibility.
They could have sold one to every person on Earth but they’d then be hammered because there would be room for growth.
I only have one Apple Watch, but I can’t see ever going to a time of not having one. It’s become a part of my life! I’ve owned almost every iPhone – currently the iPhone6+ and I expect to do the same with Apple Watch. ( and Im a 66 year old grandmother!)
Without revealing numbers TC actually gave a very concise statement on how sales are going.
— big part of the quarter was limited to online
— sales were limited due to inventory shortages
— only 600+ points of sale worldwide, i.e many areas you can’t even see an Apple Watch in a store. (to show how few that is in comparison there are about 5000 Walmart stores in USA alone. )
— sales have been picking up since they were available in stores ( some of the store sales not reported as the financial quarter ended in June 27 )
— Satisfaction rankings which is good indication of future success is off the charts.
— even with all that the Watch must have earned a billion or so which analysts would say was incredible if it wasn’t apple !
—–
I’m holding on to my aapl.
So, the saga of Apple Watch sales data continues….anecdotal reports notwithstanding. Of course, those who are content to live without Apple Watch will be subject to insults and criticisms of Apple Watch owners. Somehow, Apple Watch owners seem angry and bewildered that other people aren’t just like them. Must be an insecurity issue.
Ha. I enjoy how some people can’t stand the fact that I own a Watch but don’t think it’s the greatest thing since steak and blowjobs. I like my Watch, but it’s hardly a can’t-live-without-it item for me.
Fred, as an Watch owner, it seems like the reverse to me. I read a lot of badmouthing of a product that the author hasn’t used. I’m told I am an iSheep and that I have wasted money on a dead end product; in essence, that I am a fool. I, on the other hand, am quite happy with my purchase and am trying to encourage others to enjoy such a purchase themselves.
It is somewhat akin to having found a really nice restaurant. Those of us who have dined there praise the food, but those who haven’t complain that it is too expensive, the decor is bad, and the food not much better than McDonald’s. How would non-patrons know?
This first quarter means nothing. They sold more than they could make, which pretty much means it was successful. But everyone knew this was going to happen due to the millions of Apple fans out there who couldn’t wait to get one.
The real story will come in the next year or so, when we see how the Watch grows and whether it becomes essential to more than just fanboys. As an Apple Watch owner who is only lukewarm on the product, I will be curious to see how much of a hit the product becomes.
I’ll just point out that people like you said EXACTLY the same thing about the iPhone, then the iPad. “Yeah, they’re great, and I have one, but it’s just OK. Everybody knew all the Apple fans would buy one, but will others buy one?”
Yes. Yes, they will and it will be a hit. Watch 2 will be an ever bigger hit. I don’t even have one, but I can see it’s a great product. I haven’t worn a watch in more than ten years, but it has me seriously considering it again.
Guy Who Doesn’t Even Own a Watch Yet Has Already Made up His Mind about How Epic It Is Cuz iPad and iPhone. Even though those are very different products, with far more potential than a product with a 42mm screen.
Maybe it will be a big hit. But maybe it won’t. Trying to declare it so one way or another at this point is dumb.
I never said I don’t own a watch. Indeed, I own a couple; I just don’t wear them regularly because there’s no reason compelling enough to do so. Watch has me reconsidering wearing a watch, which I think is significant – at least as significant as your “lukewarm” assessment.
By all accounts, it’s not just Apple fans who are buying Watch, and by all accounts it’s already very successful. What’s dumb then, is talking about it like you’re not sure whether it will it be a hit or not. It already is.
Also, I never said any such things about the iPhone and iPad when they came out. I thought they were both brilliant and I was confident that they would blow people away. I am not so sure the Watch will have the same impact, based on what I am getting out of it myself.
Now you know that whenever you see data from Slice, you know it’s 100% BS.
(OK OK, we knew that before, but now we have proof).
The problem is that numbers like 4MM were bandied around but it is clear that only 2-3MM have been sold. My guess is that the ASP is around $500 and revenue from Apple Watch is around 1.25BB.
The point of sale and restricted supply are important factors. Those are going to be less important this quarter and non-existent in the holiday quarter. It was smart of Apple to release the product early in the calendar year to be ready for the massive Xmas buying season.
I believe Tim said that they had sold more Apple Watches in the first nine weeks of availability than they had sold iPhones or iPads in the same timeframe. That means Apple has sold at least three million watches.
Let the WallNut Street analcyst dicks stew in their own juices over the Watch. Let their moronic predictions lay on the page, unverifiable. Let the rumor mill go maniacal. It’s all pointless.
Stick to doing things right Apple. You certainly are in this case.