Apple becomes world leader in smart watches in 6 hours according to a study.
A marketing professor once told me that your brand is really powerful when your customers tattoo it on them, in clear reference to Harley-Davidson. I have not tattooed an apple (nor do I intend to) but the years go by and I continue to be amazed at the colossal strength that the most valuable company in the world has to remove foundations wherever it goes.
The other day we learned that the Apple Watch reserves sold out in 6 hours. We immediately speculated on whether it would be a low supply due to a lack of forecast or exceptional demand. Today we receive the first data that points in the second direction: according to Slice Intelligence, an online market analysis company, during the first day of reservations, 957,000 units of the Apple Watch were sold in the US. There are no sales figures for the other 8 countries in which it was launched, but it is easy to assume that total sales will have well exceeded one million units. According to this study, the most popular model was the Sport (logically, being the cheapest), which was purchased by 62% of customers, giving rise to an average sale price of $503.83 per watch sold. Although so many significant digits make me suspicious of the reliability of the study, let’s assume for a moment that these numbers are correct. That would mean that:
- Apple watch sales already comfortably exceed 1% of the world market (about $40 billion), a sector that had never set foot until last Friday.
- That would place it very close or even already among the 10 most important manufacturers in the world.
- Apple has made more selling watches in 6 hours than all of Twitter in 3 months.
- The Watch will vastly surpass Apple TV in a very short time, becoming the most important line of business after iPhone, iPad and Mac.
If these figures are good estimates (something that remains to be seen), the Watch would be one of the most successful product launches in history. Just think that this watch did not exist a few months ago. That until a few days ago no one was able to try it in stores and the information was limited to what the specialized media and advertisements in fashion magazines reported.
The show of force that all of this entails is unmatched by any other company that I can remember. Apple currently has the most efficient distribution channel that has ever existed: a customer base so gigantic and loyal that it is able to buy a million units of a product you have never seen or used.
We do not have official sales figures for Pebble, the current leader in the smartwatch sector (until last week). We do know that in December they reached the figure of 1 million units sold since its launch. So even adding the reserved units in their spectacular Kickstarter campaign, it is very likely that they will not exceed a few hundred thousand so far this year. Apple, on the other hand, must have far exceeded one million, if we add the sales of the other countries. And if we convert the figures to dollars, I won’t even tell you, since the Cupertino watch is 2 or 3 times more expensive than the Pebble mini-Nokia.
Let’s see if in a few days Tim Cook puffs out his chest and reveals official sales figures for the Watch, although it may not be the case in this case (Apple recently changed the way it publishes sales to hide them).
In any case, what is clear is that Apple has given this segment the boost it needed to take off. It already happened with smartphones and the iPhone in 2007. With tablets and the iPad in 2010. And now we are experiencing the awakening of a new category: smartwatches and the Apple Watch. Time will tell if Apple is able to continue leading it or not.
And the moment of the bets arrives. If the analysts are right we could see sales of 23 million units, which would be an incredible $11.5bn. If the figures are correct, Apple would thus become the first watch manufacturer in the world, ahead of Swatch (about $9,000M), Rolex and all the others… Amazing, isn’t it?
What do you think? Do you think we will see that or that once the fashion wears off it will remain a residual product of Apple? Leave your comment below or on our Facebook page.
