Apple has long been the unquestioned arbiter of cool. Every tech savvy geek out there either own one (or multiple) apple product(s), or at least knows someone who does. Having recently crushed it’s first quarter earnings forecasts to and posting the most profitable quarter in history, Apple was poised to ride this tsunami wave of consumerism into the sunset.
That is, of course, until a report came out showing that sales from Apple’s latest endeavor, the Apple Watch, have dropped off dramatically since its debut in April. Data from Slice Intelligence show that sales of the once coveted smart watch have fallen to about 20,000 units per day from around 200,000 units per day during its launch week.
As Spock said to Stonn in the Star Trek episode Amok Time, “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is so often true.” This looks like that may be the case with the Apple Watch.
“What we’re seeing is a massive drop-off in Apple Watch sales pretty much after the first day that they were sold,” said Slice Intelligence Vice President of Marketing Jaimee Minney.
“We saw the bulk of the watches were actually moved the first day they were available for preorder,” she told the E-Commerce Times.
But not so fast says Creative Strategies CEO Tim Bajarin.
“It’s highly inaccurate,” he told the E-Commerce Times. “There’s no way an organization can have that level of accuracy just from receipts.”
But Slice Intelligence aren’t the only analysts showing a drop in Apple Watch purchases. Pacific Crest Securites lowered their sales estimates for Apple’s 2015 fiscal year, which ends in September. This drop off in their wearable product sales won’t really hurt Apple financially, but it could have a chilling effect on the overall wearables market. Just as Apple helped push the smartphone market into the stratosphere, many industry experts were counting on them doing the same thing for smart watches. This hiccup could cripple the industry for the foreseeable future.
In any case, people will still buy Apple products and the company will likely remain one of the most profitable in the world. Those of us who purchased Apple Watches might just be relegated to the same socially awkward arena as those who purchased Google Glass.
