The Apple Watch is scheduled to begin shipping in April and expectations are running high that it will be yet another bona fide hit for the company. J.P. Morgan expects that Apple could sell as many as 26 million this year alone. It certainly appears that Apple also has high expectations for the Apple Watch. According to The Wall Street Journal, it has asked suppliers to ready between 5 and 6 million watches for the launch.
According to unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” half of this initial production run will consist of the entry level Apple Watch which will start at US$349. The mid-tier model will account for a further third. The high-end Apple Watch Edition will be the scarcest at launch, accounting for a comparatively small 16% of the production run. By the second quarter, Apple expects to ramp up production of this last model to about a million units a month.
Apple is well known to adjust its “plan of record” and supplier orders quickly depending on how much sales differ from its projections. It could make quick changes to the Apple Watch product mix if it finds a particular line doing better than expected.
Assuming that these numbers are legitimate, they show how Apple will rapidly dominate this market despite coming to market later than many competitors. Pebble recently topped the one million unit sold mark while Android Wear devices saw sales start rather slowly with only 720,000 units being sold in 2014.
Source : The Wall Street Journal