You know that Apple Watch on your arm? What if the Macalope told you you don’t own an Apple Watch? You never bought one. It’s not even on your arm.
Writing for the Forbes contributor network and manufactured hysteria machine, Theo Priestley asks the decidedly non-musical question “Does An Apple Watch Discount Point To Flagging Sales Numbers?” (Tip o’ the antlers to Elevated Equines.)
Do you even have to ask?
OK, let’s be honest, if Apple was selling as many as it would like, it probably wouldn’t be offering any kind of a deal related to them. On the other hand, offering $50 off a total purchase of at least $800 (iPhone + Apple Watch) only in California and Massachusetts stores isn’t exactly conducting a fire sale. It’s not even smoking. If you were Tom Hanks in Cast Away and standing over this sale you would not be crowing about having made fire.
…this again draws into question why Tim Cook and Cupertino are remaining tight-lipped about Apple Watch sales.
Even though this is something they said they were going to do from the start, probably because they never expected to sell the Watch in numbers that would be jaw-dropping. Compare Apple to literally any other tech company and you’ll see it’s far more forthcoming with sales figures than its competitors. Unless you compare their number to Amazon, in which case you’ll get a divide by zero error.
Priestley notes that based on Apple’s statements and reported revenue numbers Quartz estimates the company shipped somewhere between 5 and 6 million Watches in the first two quarters it was available.
But there are three other factors at play here which are not taken into account by analyst expectations or estimates.
Factors that somehow affect looking at how much money Apple made in the “Other Products” category and trying to back into the number of Watches it sold? These are factors that affect how math works? These must be some amazing, quantum-mechanical factors.
(1) Interest in wearables in general is declining.
Is this lack of interest full of anti-tachyons that might cause it to ripple backward into the past and affect the number of Watches Apple’s already sold?
Anti-tachyons. It’s a science thing. Look it up.
(2) Apple Watch returns are higher than Apple dares to admit.
How does Priestley know this? He knows this because he returned his. And other people on the web have written about returning theirs. And the plural of anecdote is “The Apple Watch sucks.”
(3) Apple Watch has fallen foul of the rumour mill, and Apple’s own annual release cycle. Let’s face it, nobody wants to buy a $500 smartwatch…
$350, $400, $500, something like that.
…knowing there’s already a replacement with updated features in the wings less than 12 months away.
12 months of utility? Meaningless! Far better to sit in the dark, alone with your thoughts… plotting, scheming… soon your hour of revenge will be nigh. Well, in 12 months.
…the early burst of sales activity for the Apple Watch has slowed dramatically and Apple knows this.
What numbers are you looking at? The Quartz numbers assume Apple sold about 2.5 million Watches in the second calendar quarter and about 2.5 million in the third. Sure, it was on sale longer in the third calendar quarter, but you’d expect some drop off from the first quarter it was available and Quartz‘s numbers aren’t precise enough to…
You know, why is the Macalope even bothering to try to explain this? It’s pretty obvious that the only answer that’s worth printing is “APPLE WATCH IN HUGE TROUBLE.”