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Analyst estimates for Apple Watch sales all over the place, ranging from 3-6 million units

Since its launch, Apple Watch sales estimates have either shown it as doing incredibly well, or that it’s doomed to failure. Tim Cook hasn’t announced any figures yet, and may not even report them during tomorrow’s quarterly earnings call. But that won’t stop analysts guessing. If recent “estimates” are anything to go by, the financial wizards in charge of looking in to these numbers have no idea what’s going on. Estimates are all over the place…

Philip Elmer-DeWitt over at Fortune has compiled a list of 27 analyst estimates recently published, and shows just how little anyone seems to know about how well the Apple Watch is doing. Although the average is a seemingly safe 4.07 million units, the range from highest to lowest estimate is huge.

Sundeep Bajikar, a professional analyst from Jefferies, estimates Apple has sold 5.70 million Watch units. The lowest guess is just 2.85 million units, almost 3 million short of the highest estimate. And while that estimate was submitted by an amateur analyst, there are number of professionals (including Gene Munster, and KGI) who aren’t too far off that estimate. Piper Jaffray, Oppenheimer, Canaccord and Credit Suisse financial analysts have all submitted estimates of 3 million units. Still some way off the highest guess.

The long and short of this is that nobody seems to know anything. It would be normal to see variations like these estimates for iPad sales, which typically sell in to the double figures (of millions). But to see the highest guess at double the number of the lowest is virtually unheard of.

Apple will announce its quarterly earnings for Q3 2015 tomorrow. Whether or not Tim Cook announces Watch figures is yet to be seen. Last fall, Tim Cook is quoted as saying that he’s “not anxious in reporting a lot of numbers on Apple Watch, because competitor’s look for it.” If he sticks to that tune, we’ll be guessing for a little while yet.

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Comments

  1. 89p13 - 9 years ago

    It Is What It Is – And Apple isn’t telling! ;)

    YMMV

    • dcj001 - 9 years ago

      “not anxious in reporting a lot of numbers on Apple Watch, because competitor’s look for it.”

      Surely, Tim Cook did not say “competitor’s” (possessive). I am sure that he said “competitors” (plural).

  2. myke2241 - 9 years ago

    i saw some report saying that Apple is selling 20k Apple Watches a day and how that was low. these people are just full of it. How many watches a day is the Android camp selling per day?

    • Harvey Lubin - 9 years ago

      That was from Slice. The 20k figure was for online orders in the US only! It does not include China and the rest of the world, or Apple Watches bought in stores (now that they are available there).

      • rnc - 9 years ago

        And “forgetting” the fact that it’s a watch, and there various sizes, bracelets, colors, etc…

    • I have an Apple Watch and I love it. It’s awesome. But what has Android got to do with the report? Nothing at all.

      So why bring it up?

      • rnc - 9 years ago

        Precisely.

        Android has a couple of flops (Motorola first ventures, Sony SW, Galaxy Gear and AWear).

        Also, there’s not a single Android Watch with a feature set as complete as the Apple.

        In fact, not a single one with NFC, speaker (OMG), 8GB flash, >=300 dpi, etc…

        That’s the real problem, they can’t convince in specs, they can’t convince in price, they can’t convince with looks…

      • myke2241 - 9 years ago

        It has a lot to do with it actually. If you deem Apple Watch a failure because they are not selling enough watches then Android Wear should be seemed a failure due to their sales numbers as well.

    • jcook3434 - 9 years ago

      Android isn’t as expensive as an apple watch. Secondly, who in the hell is going to spend 700 to 10,000 dollars for a stupid watch. Sooner or later people will wake up and realize no android or apple watch isn’t worth that kind of money.

      • rnc - 9 years ago

        I have a 868€ Apple Watdh kit.

        I’m 100% happy with it.

        AMA.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

        Apple does have watches that only cost $350, and they aren’t basic watches with limited functionality, they are “smart” watches. People spend a lot more than what Apple charges for traditional watches. It’s all what someone wants and is willing to spend. Obviously, you don’t want to spend $350 or more for a smart watch.

  3. jkruehne - 9 years ago

    are these US sales only? isn’t it close to 3M in the US alone? (nobody knows, sure, but thats what in the press:)
    BTW it is childish from Apple side not to mention the sales … they did this thing, why not be honest about it …?

    • smyxz - 9 years ago

      It’s a number that Apoke doesn’t want to share because it can give new competitors hindsight over sales. Once they are farther ahead in the tech race for wrist-worn device they will probably be more comfortable giving it out.

      Also, I was in Shanghai two weeks ago and there are still liens of people waiting to buy the watch. I think Chinese watch sales are killing the us figures. If us has sold 3 million I wouldn’t be surprised to see China having sold at least 5 million. Not to say chinese consumers tend to buy edition and higher end steel models as well.

      • jkruehne - 9 years ago

        ;o) sure, it’s business. but why: let it be 5M in total – in three months. no reason to be “shy”
        (anyhow. one is enough)

    • Andrew John - 9 years ago

      The only thing childish is your stupid comment. Apple don’t have to make their figures public, but I bet they do, and when that happens, you can shut that stupid face of yours right up.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

        They do have to publish certain information being a publicly traded company and for people to be attracted to the stock. The Investment community typically wants to have some information as to what Apple is selling so they can run their own future predictions to see if they want to buy/sell/hold shares of the company. Since the watch is a separate category, Apple might want to publish sales data.

    • Andrew John - 9 years ago

      Childish? Please explain why? And if Apple do release figures, who’ll look childish then?

      • jkruehne - 9 years ago

        “childish” might not be the correct phrase (not a native speaker;-) but again: they build it, they offer it, they should stand for it …

  4. rogifan - 9 years ago

    Since Apple most likely won’t be providing sales data does it even matter what analyst estimates are? It’s not like we’ll be able to compare them to anything.

    • chrisl84 - 9 years ago

      Investors have to use something to know whether to buy or sell, so yes it matters.

      • macnificentseven48 - 9 years ago

        Wouldn’t it make more sense for investors to use iPhone sales to buy or sell Apple because that’s where Apple’s revenue and profits mainly come from? It would be little purpose to pick a product that only represents a few percent of the company’s earnings. Do you think investors are buying and selling Microsoft based on Microsoft Band sales? I don’t think so. They’re probably not even buying and selling Microsoft based on Xbox One sales. Apple investors are just dicks. Amazon doesn’t even report Kindle sales and investors don’t give a damn.

      • chrisl84 - 9 years ago

        Investors care very much about new product lines. That’s where the real money is, get in early and reap the rewards. Showing innovation proves long term sustainability. Investing is not about todays revenue, its about tomorrows.

  5. macnificentseven48 - 9 years ago

    They’re called analysts but they should be called guessers.

  6. vandy75 - 9 years ago

    In the final analysis, who really cares? It won’t make Apple any less than the financial juggernaut it is. I have seen haters strain logic often to make Apple seem a failure. Those who were popular in high school, the training ground of true haters, are well acquainted with people like this. Everybody knows them…home on Friday and Saturday nights, didn’t go to the prom and if they did their date was not envied, didn’t go to prep school, etc. bottom line, I love my Apple watch. I didn’t get it to impress anybody but myself. I know of no one that is anything less than thrilled. In fact I wanted a second but was told not yet possible. Here’s the good news, the haters aren’t even a blip on Tim Cook’s radar and heaven knows Angela is far too supercilious to give a whit.

  7. Jamie (@thatsnasty) - 9 years ago

    What Volkswagen app is that bottom centre?

  8. Josh Hutton - 9 years ago

    Let me go on record as saying that I was, and I still am, intrigued with the “possibility” of these devices, but there is one major flaw that prevents me from going out an buying one. Its the fact that the device (watch), does not have its own internal GPS. It must rely on the iPhones GPS in order to record my distance. Since I have an iPhone, it would seem that the lack of a internal GPS in the watch should not be a problem. Well, it is. I run a lot. I mean I run a lot. Up to 70 miles a week and sometimes more. I have always found that the GPS in the iPhone was a bit inferior to my Garmin. I love my Garmin, and it works great. I charge it every night so that having to charge an Apple Watch every night too would not be an issue with me. But since the Apple Watch must be used in conjunction with an iPhone in order to get a GPS signal, I won’t be able to use it when it rains. I DO NOT take my iPhone out with me when its raining. It’s bad enough that the iPhone gets wet from sweat, but rain would literally ruin my iPhone. I already had a problem with water damage on a previous model of iPhone. The 4S I believe. I’m not going to do that again. So if I can’t use the GPS without the phone, its basically useless to me.

  9. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

    People seem to forget that Apple still hasn’t rolled out the Apple Watch completely to the rest of the world, so their sales data is going to reflect limited availability. They are also not selling the products through their normal resellers and not everyone likes buying something on-line or has access to an Apple Store to try the things on.

  10. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

    I think once they release Apple Watch OS 2 that it will spurt sales, especially since this product hasn’t gone through a Christmas season yet. This is probably going to be a big seller during the Christmas season, so I think due to when they started shipping the product, that that has something to do with lower sales since the first full quarter they started to ship the product. We’ll see what happens after the December quarter is over.