Customers preordering Apple Inc’s smartwatch on Friday are to wait at least a month for delivery, a sign of strong early demand for company chief executive officer Tim Cook’s first new major product.
Cook, interviewed on cable television channel CNBC, said initial orders were “great” for the Apple Watch, available for preorder online and to try out in stores by appointment, but not to take home.
“We view this as an indication of solid demand paired with very limited supply,” Piper Jaffray & Co analyst Gene Munster wrote in a note to clients. “We continue to expect modest sales in the June quarter as demand ramps over time.”
Photo: Reuters
A key factor in the watch’s success is to be demand once an initial wave of interest from Apple enthusiasts subsides.
The watch goes on sale officially on April 24, online and through appointments in shops. However, soon after online preorders opened on Friday, Apple’s Web site listed shipping times in this month for some models of the watch and four to six weeks for others.
There was immediately brisk bidding on eBay for confirmed orders of watches, with hundreds of sellers looking to make a few hundred or even thousand US dollars by passing on their watches, once received.
The Apple Watch sport starts at US$349, while the standard version comes in at US$549 in the US. High-end Edition watches with 18-karat gold alloys are priced from US$10,000 and go as high as US$17,000.
Sales estimates for the Apple Watch this year vary widely. Piper Jaffray predicts 8 million units and Global Securities Research forecasts 40 million.
By comparison, Apple sold nearly 200 million iPhones last year.
Apple’s smartwatch is widely expected to outsell those by Samsung Electronics Co, Sony Corp and Fitbit Inc. It will likely account for 55 percent of global smartwatch shipments this year, according to Societe Generale SA.
“Apple will outsell its wearable rivals by a very wide margin, but it will do this on the power of its brand and its design alone,” independent technology analyst Richard Windsor said.
Apple shares closed 0.43 percent higher at US$127.10 on the NASDAQ on Friday.
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