It is quite interesting that you note that Apple is keeping the production volume low ... considering that in the very first weekend when sales were opened up, Apple had over ONE MILLION units in volume ... while ... for the entire year of 2014, ALL the other manufacturers combined (for Smartwatches) had 700,000 units sold!
AND IN ADDITION ... in the week following that first weekend, Apple DOUBLED its sales, blowing way past all the other manufacturers combined for the entire year last year.
That’s quite AMAZING for them “holding back” ... :-) ...
By Apple standards, production levels of the new Apple Watch is low, because even Apple knows the device is not for everyone. It’s not the iPhone, the gold standard for cellphones.
A couple of minor corrections to your numbers, Star. Apple sold 1.23 million Apple Watches in the UNITED STATES in the first hour. . . but they were also selling in 12 other countries including China, Japan, Canada, and some European countries whose numbers are not included in that 1.23 million. An additional 1.3 million is estimated to have also been sold in that first hour in those countries. Apple continued selling pre-orders for the entire weekend and on into the week. No one except Apple knows how many Apple Watches were ordered during the week and are continuing to be sold. . . but in that first hour alone, the 2.5 million Apple Watches that were apparently ear-marked for delivery on April 24th were sold-out in the first TEN MINUTES! The demand for the Apple Watch has been phenomenal!
There is no evidence of Apple holding anything back. . . and there never has been any evidence of such holding back on product releases to "generate demand." It has always been obvious that there is a tidal wave of demand for Apple products before any Apple product release. There has never been any need to gin up demand.