Industry watchers warn that data should be taken with a grain of salt
After selling out on its initial release, it looks like sales of the much-hyped Apple Watch have dropped off significantly, according to new research from a market analysis company.
California-based Slice Intelligence reports Apple Watch sales have plummeted by a whopping 90% since its release. During the April 10 launch week, Apple was selling some 200,000 units per day, according to Slice. That figure has dropped to between 10,000 and 20,000 units per day, Slice found.
On the other hand, Apple Insider calls the Slice data “questionable” and urges readers to consider the information “with a grain of salt.” Apple Insider points that, despite a decline in Apple Watch sales, the tech juggernaut is still way ahead of its competitors – particularly Samsung and its Gear line of smart watches — in terms of sales.
At the time of its release, the high-end Apple Watch Edition and the lower-end Apple Watch Sport both sold out faster than the stainless steel watches.
Apple had already predicted that demand would exceed supply, saying it based that projection on the number of people asking about the watch in its retail stores. The company of course did not comment on production volumes, which could be deliberately or unintentionally coming in below demand levels.
In an opinion piece published by Imore, Rene Ritchie wrote how the “Internet of Things”/consumer wearables market is just now emerging, so there’s no apt comparison for accurately analyzing sales data.
“In other words, where releasing numbers helped shape Apple’s message in mobile, there’s no similar advantage in wearables,” Ritchie wrote. “There’s not a decade of existing data to measure success against, and anything Apple releases would be of much greater value to competitors also trying to become established in the same market. (If Apple had it to do it again, given what happened with Google and Samsung, maybe the company wouldn’t have released so much information about the iPhone or iPad either? Most of Apple’s competitors, after all, provide little to nothing by way of hard numbers.)”
