Sales of the new Apple Watch have dropped by 90% since the opening week, says a fresh market-research report.
According to data presented by
California-based Slice Intelligence, since the initial surge in April, Apple
has been selling fewer than
20,000 watches a day in the U.S., and
on some days fewer than 10,000.
That is a steep drop from the
week of the April 10 launch, when Apple sold about 1.5 million watches,
or an average of about 200,000 a day, Slice gauges.
Furthermore, Slice says that two-thirds of the watches sold to date have been the
lower-profit “Sport” version, whose price starts at $349, rather than the more advanced and expensive models that start at
$549.
In an attempt to conquer the luxury market, the tech giant also developed a gold edition of the watches, priced at $10,000 and more. Fewer that 2,000 of these ones have been purchased in the U.S.
Slice's research is based on electronic receipts sent to email addresses after purchases. The firm conducts market research on behalf of consumer-goods companies, among others, many of them in the Fortune 500, says MarketWatch.
How disturbing these numbers should be?
The watch represents a small part of Apple’s business. Trefis, a stock-research company, attributes just 4% of Apple’s current value to its watch business.
But this plunge in sales, if
confirmed, nonetheless looks ominous, as it is the first absolutely new product the firm has created and launched since the death of its founder Steve Jobs, in 2011. Thus, the watch may represent how well the company can maintain its excellence in innovation, marketing and production it reached under Jobs.
It is also a foray into the world
of so-called “wearable technology,” which is supposed to offer yet another
big rise in product sales for Apple and its rivals in the years ahead. As the theory goes, once everyone has a smartphone, they are supposed to get a
smart watch, followed by smart eyeglasses, etc., etc.
As Apple has entered a market for wearable tech, against competitors such as health-monitoring wristband Fitbit, investors should start being more cautious.
