Posted on 07/07/2015 8:25:40 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Sales of the new Apple Watch have plunged by 90% since the opening week, according to a new market research report.
Apple AAPL, -1.27% has been selling fewer than 20,000 watches a day in the U.S. since the initial surge in April, and on some days fewer than 10,000, according to data from Slice Intelligence, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based market research company.
That is a sharp decline from week of the April 10 launch, when Apple sold about 1.5 million watches, or an average of about 200,000 a day, Slice estimates.
Furthermore, two-thirds of the watches sold so far have been the lower-profit “Sport” version, whose prices start at $349, according to Slice, rather than the costlier and more advanced models that start at $549.
In an ambitious bid for the luxury market, Apple also unveiled a gold “Edition” model priced at $10,000 or more. So far fewer than 2,000 of them have sold in the U.S., Slice contends.
Slice bases its research on electronic receipts sent to millions of email addresses following purchases. The company conducts market research on behalf of consumer goods companies, among others, many of them in the Fortune 500.
Wall Street has been desperately trying to work out how well the new watch has been selling, but Apple has been refusing to say. The company, which in the past has updated Wall Street on the sales of new products soon after the launch, has yet to release any numbers about the watch.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
well duh... how many people do they expect to buy them- a million every day?
There are plenty of other smartwatches on the market for far less money. A couple of my students, professors of electronic engineering, wear, I believe, Samsung smartwatches, and they love ‘em.
Two thousand people bought a gold toy? Wow.
Whereas a three year old Rolex or a Breitling will be every bit as functional as a new one, and hold a high percentage of its value.
Yes, there are some stupid rich people, but not that many.
I believe Apple was committing fraud by selling their $10k gold watches as 22 carat. Its not 22 carat in the traditional sense but Apple’s own 22 carat alloy, which could mean that there’s not much gold in it at all
Why Apple thought a wrist-borne I/O device for an iPhone would be a big seller is beyond me. A wrist-borne stand-along computer with a touch-screen interface might be a fun product that lots of technophiles would have wanted and could have generated significant sales, but the iWatch isn’t it.
Make that stand-alone, rather than “stand-along”.
(But FReepers know I’m a lousy proofreader.)
Bingo.
Instead of being useful to the buyers they are finding it only useful to Apple.
Just how much gram of gold is in those watches? $100? Selling them at $10k is a rip off
Steve Jobs was against the idea. The Gay Boy Wonder wanted to make is mark.
Does not surprise me. I recently talked with an Apple employee (a former intern of mine) who is quite tech savvy as many of her generation are. She has one but has no real clue what to do with it. To her it’s an accessory and a really expensive calendaring system that beeps at her when a meeting is coming up.
There's no way I'd get a computer wrist watch. Useless.
Quote:
“Whereas a three year old Rolex or a Breitling will be every bit as functional as a new one, and hold a high percentage of its value.”
I have some pretty good watches (at least I think), and
one of them is a 1943 Rolex.
It keeps time better than all the others I have.
At this rate, they’ll hit zero in August. That’s about the value of the company without Steve Jobs.
There actually is less gold in it. Apple uses a new alloy that achieves 22 carat but with molecular structure containing more empty space, resulting in a lighter yet stronger alloy. This is not a secret; there’s some good articles out there about it.
And it will continue working long after the iWatch is but a faint memory.
Well, Apple has never said the Apple Watch would be a big moneymaker. Apple’s truly big moneymaker is the iPhone—and iPhone sales continue to be strong.
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