There are lies, there are damned lies, and then there are statistics. There are reports that analysis firm Slice Intelligence has noticed a slowing and decline in Apple Watch sales since its launch. Some analysts have reduced their projections for Apple Watch sales down to as far as 15 million sales. And really, the PR for Watch apps has really died down since launch, when there was a real frenzy. But since, nothing. So the Apple Watch excitement has definitely passed. But is the Watch doomed? Nope. These numbers might sound bad, but really, the Apple Watch might be doing okay, as it settles into the early days of its existence. First off, this graph showing sales seems particularly meant to be shocking:
Now compare to the normal daily sales:
The numbers pan out to about 20,000-30,000 sales a day. Those numbers might not sound great, but for a secondary accessory that only works with iPhones? That’s still a 7 million to 11 million unit sales in the first 12 months. Android Wear didn’t even ship (not sell) a million units last year, and Apple outsold every smartwatch manufacturer’s 2014 numbers on day one. And that’s not factoring in the almost 1.5 million day one sales, or even any potential sales spikes due to the holiday season. The Apple Watch is still backordered, requiring 4-6 weeks to ship, which could be putting off sales. You can’t go buy an Apple Watch at an Apple Store yet, they’re still just an online purchase.
Considering that this is year one of a new device category for Apple, and that they have nuked Android Wear from orbit, let’s hold off on the doom-saying for the Apple Watch until we get more data and the first holiday season for the Apple Watch has passed.
[Quartz]
