My Thoughts on Technology and Jamaica: Apple Watch pre-orders sold out until June 2015 - How 1 million served equals Pebble Watch 2 years Sales in How to Sell a Wearable

Friday, April 17, 2015

Apple Watch pre-orders sold out until June 2015 - How 1 million served equals Pebble Watch 2 years Sales in How to Sell a Wearable

“After trying on the Apple Watch, visiting stores, and based on our field work, we are now more convinced that the Apple Watch will be disruptive to the fashion watch market. At a minimum, the widespread buzz may cause something of a standstill in the watch market”

 Analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets addressing investors on Sunday April 19th 2015

Almost everyone, especially in the Google Android community, are still in shock and haven't taken their Jaws of the ground in collective shock: People actually love the Apple Watch. It's like the scene from that Movie The Day After when the Atomic Bomb Dropped.


In fact so much that Apple has apparently run out of their initial stock for walk in or pick up of Apple Watches that were pre-ordered.

Already a lot of celebrities have been spotted rocking the Apple Watch including Star Wars Director J.J. Abrams as reported in the article “Director J.J. Abrams shows off Apple Watch onstage at 'Star Wars' event in California”, published Thursday, April 16, 2015 By AppleInsider Staff, Apple Insider


Apple, ever the consummate customer Centric company has started a series of Apple Basics Workshops at their Apple Stores to acquaint buyers of the Apple Watch on how to use the wearable device as reported in the article “Apple Stores to run Watch workshops”, published April 17, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET News.






In fact, they so oversubscribed that the Apple Watch won't be available until June 2015 as stated in the article “Apple Watch walk-in sales may not start till June”, published April 16, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET News.

Apple Watch outsold Android Wear smartwatches - Pebble Smartwatch 2 years sales eclipsed and beaten in one weekend

To put this in perspective, the Apple Watch has not only outsold all the Google Android Wear smartwatches from 2014, it may have also beaten the much cheaper Pebble line of smartwatches, probably selling more than 1 million Apple Watches as noted in the article “All signs point to 1 million Apple Watch pre-orders, analysts say”, published April 13, 2015 by Don Reisinger, CNET News.



For comparison, Pebble has sold about 1 million Pebble smartwatches, a mark that the company took two (2) years to achieve as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Pebble's 1 million smartwatches Army as Apple Watch set to launch in April 2015”.

I guess the Pebble Time, their Kickstarter-record smashing smartwatch as detailed in my Geezam blog article entitled “Pebble Time promises a smartwatch to rain on Apple Watch’s Parade”, now has some real competition from the Apple Watch.

In essence, the Pebble Smartwatch two (2) years sales have been eclipsed and beaten in one weekend by the Apple Watch pre-orders. Americans are STILL ordering the Apple Watch and to date, Apple is YET to give out any official numbers despite the negative reviews thus far talking about the necessity of this product.



We might hear more about their Apple Watch Sales number at Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) on Monday June 8th 2015 as stated in the article “Apple's splashy developer fest kicks off June 8”, published April 14, 2015 by Lance Whitney, CNET News.

Already Apple has put out four (4) more videos explaining in detail most of the other features of the Apple Watch











So how many Apple Watches were pre-ordered exactly? The analysts weigh in on the subject.

Apple Watch pre-orders sold out until June 2015 - How 1 million served equals the Pebble Watch in How to sell a Wearable

It's now a week after the Apple Watch went on Pre-order and persons came in on Appointment on Friday April 10th 2015 for a fitting as I'd explained in my blog article entitled “Apple Watch Appointment Fittings coming Friday April 10th 2015 - Why Apple Appointments sets trend for How to sell a Wearable”.

I'd used the predictions of Piper Jaffry Analyst Gene Munster and predicted that the Apple Watch would hit 1 million pre-orders over the weekend.

Turns out I might be onto something as analysts Cowen and Co. have already declaring over 1 million devices pre-ordered worldwide as reported in the article “All signs point to 1 million Apple Watch pre-orders, analysts say”, published April 13, 2015 by Don Reisinger, CNET News.

Apparently this team of analysts at Cowen and Co came to this conclusion via some very fancy mathematics, quote: “We found several dozen salespeople per retail store who each had several dozen Apple Watch appointments during store hours. Based on our discussions, these showings are translating into Apple Watch pre-orders 85-90% of the time.

Continuing along the line of reasoning from the analysts Cowen and Co, quote: “Extrapolating the frequency of appointments and conversion ratio metrics across Apple's retail footprint of the Watch's launch markets, we believe weekend pre-orders could easily be in the range of 1 million. We note iPhone 6/6+ pre-orders exceeded 4MM in just the first 24 hours of a multi-market three-day launch weekend in September 2014 but a 1 million Watch number would be respectable and even a little better than our model”.

So that’s how they calculated their figure of 1 million sold.

Apple Watch 1 million strong Pre-order Army – Apple Watch Basics to train Army to use their product

1 million worldwide is very small for any product launched these days. But when you consider that this is a new product in a new product category that many said Apple would fail in, then 1 million becomes the benchmark for Google and their Android Wear to follow.


For comparison, only 720,000 Google Android Wear smartwatches have been sold in all of 2014 as noted in the article “Slow Android Wear sales underline the challenges Google's smartwatches face”, published Feb 12, 2015 By Mikael Ricknäs, IDG News Service, PC world and “Android Wear Sales Dim As Apple Watch Looms”, published 2/12/2015 by Eric Zeman, Information Week.

Which explains why Google has decide it was worth it to team up with Intel and luxury Swiss Watchmaker Tag Heuer to make Mechanical smartwatches by December 2015 as noted in the article “TAG Heuer teams up with Intel, Google on smartwatch”, published March 19, 2015 by Ben Fox Rubin, CNET News and “Google, Intel, and TAG Heuer Team Up on Luxury Smartwatch”, published March 19, 2015 by Stephen Pulvirent Corinne Gretler, Bloomberg.

So until Apple's WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) on Monday June 8th 2015, from their recent push to have Apple Watch Basics Classes, we can only guess what the real sales figures are.

I'm betting the ranch it may be as high as five million or more…….and customer finally get their Apple Watches in June 2015!




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