The Apple Watch launched globally yesterday with a small queue of Japanese tech addicts lining up in Tokyo for Apple Inc’s first wearable gadget, but there was no sign of the excitement usually attached to the company’s product rollouts.
Buyers can take the smartwatch home from a handful of upscale boutiques and department stores, including The Corner in Berlin, Germany, Maxfield in Los Angeles and Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London, which Apple courted to help position the watch as a fashion item.
About 50 people lined up to buy the watch at electronics store Bic Camera in Tokyo’s Ginza District, while at the nearby Apple Store it was like any other Friday, according to reporters at the shops.
Photo: Bloomberg
“I buy one or two Apple products every time they release something new,” Chiu Long, a 40-year-old IT worker from Taiwan, told reporters while in line at Bic Camera.
“I like to run, so the heart rate reader is a progress,” he added.
At a retail outlet of mobile carrier SoftBank Corp, about 20 people queued to get their hands on the gadget.
“I want to develop my own application that’s compatible with the smartwatch,” 27-year-old IT worker Tatsuya Omori said as he waited in line outside the store. “I’m also an Apple fan. I simply want it.”
Technology lovers and investors keen to find out the components of the watch were left frustrated, with a tough resin coating protecting the core computing module from scrutiny.
Gadget repair firm iFixit, which has successfully pried open other Apple products on their launch day to reveal their components, said the US company also appeared to be promoting its brand on the watch’s inner workings, complicating detailed analysis of the parts’ origins.
The lack of lines at Apple stores will make it hard to judge popular demand for the watch, which comes in 38 variations with prices ranging from US$349 for the Sport version to US$10,000 and more for the gold Edition.
Apple has not released any numbers since it opened for preorders on April 10, although many buyers were told their watches would not arrive for a month or more as supply appeared to dry up.
Wall Street estimates of Apple Watch sales vary widely. FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives raised his sales estimate this week to 20 million watches from 17 million, based in part on online order backlogs.
“There was a question over whether the trajectory and demand for wearables in the Apple ecosystem was there and real, but it’s a resounding yes,” Ives said.
Apple itself on Wednesday said that some customers are to get watches faster than promised.
“Our team is working to fill orders as quickly as possible based on the available supply and the order in which they were received,” the Cupertino, California-based company said in a statement.
Also yesterday, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd teased the market with hints of a new version of its Gear smartwatch. The South Korean tech giant’s official blog post showed images of smartwatch with a round face — which would be a first for Samsung — and naming several partners, including Baidu Inc (百度), Yelp Inc and CNN.
Samsung also said it would release a wearable software development kit for third-party developers ahead of the launch.
The South Korean company has launched six smartwatches since 2013 to build an early lead in the nascent market, but sales have been modest. Researcher IHS Inc estimates that Samsung accounted for nearly 1 million of the 3.6 million smartwatches shipped globally last year. The researcher expects shipments of more than 19 million Apple Watches this year, more than five times the number of all smartwatches shipped globally last year.
Samsung gave no other details on the new Gear smartwatch, such as when it might start selling, although the head of the firm’s mobile business said earlier this month that Samsung would launch products in the near future.
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