It was time for Apple to release a new product category and the first results are in, albeit non official: the Watch is already leading the smartwatch market, selling more in the first day than all Android Wear devices together in the past year.
That's according to the predictions of several analysts, who place the initial sales around 2 million units. Research firm Slice Intelligence says 1.7 million orders were placed in the U.S alone, while the Watch is also available in the U.K., France, and Australia, among a few other countries. KGI Securities points to more than 2.3 million Watches already sold.
"I've seen lots of speculation, everything from a million to 3 million watches sold, but nobody knows. Apple is not saying,", notes Van L. Baker, Gartner's research vice-president and lead Apple analyst. He tells Blasting News that the Watch will "dominate this year" and suspects Apple is not giving numbers because "they don't want to give their competitors any more information that they absolutely have to."
The Watch comes in three editions and prices start at £299, which is substantially higher than recent offerings like the Moto 360, at £199, or the LG G Watch R, at £189.99.
But that didn't stop consumers: by comparison, research firm Canalys says only 720,000 Android Wear devices were sold last year, including all models from Motorola, LG, Sony, and Asus (Samsung's Gears run on Tizen and the company sold around 1.2 million units).
That means the Apple Watch outsold its competitors in the first days alone, and would've sold more if it wasn't plagued with production problems.
"Right now, demand is greater than supply, so we are working hard to remedy that," Apple CEO Tim Cook said. No Watches are available for purchase at Apple Stores and supplies will be short until next month.
"Sometime in late June we anticipate being in the position to begin to sell the Apple Watch in additional countries," he added, during the conference call following the earnings release. He informed that over 3,500 Watch-specific apps have already been made available by third-party developers.
"They are likely to do extraordinarily well this year, there's a lot of demand and a lot of buzz around the product right now,", Van L. Baker sums up. The challenge, he says, will be keeping up with that next year.
