After an explosive showing of initial sales, purchases of the Apple Watch have fallen as much as 90 per cent; data collected by Slice Intelligence shows that while the company sold the electronic timepieces at a rate of 200,000 a day at the time of their launch, they are now being sold at a significantly smaller rate of 20,000 per day.
Slice, a California-based research firm, believes that two-thirds of these sales have been of the lowest-end Sport model, which retails for $349 USD. Moreover, it says, fewer than 2,000 of the total sales have come from the substantially more expensive 18k gold Edition model.
Apple says that it will not provide sales data for the Apple Watch, although CEO Tim Cook notes that orders have been “great.” However, Jeff Williams, the company’s senior vice-president of operations, says that the watch has sold “a lot, but not enough.” He continues, “it’s a new category, we’ll see where it goes over time, and if it reaches the materiality levels, maybe we’ll change that.”
While the Apple Watch’s sales may be slowing down, its existence still threatens consumer purchasing of other timepieces. “Consumers are thinking about the investment involved in an Apple Watch and may be planning ahead by not buying other watches,” says Simeon Siegel, a Nomura analyst.
Additionally, Fossil Group, which makes watches for Michael Kors, Tory Burch, DKNY and others, reported a seven per cent decline in revenues in the first quarter of 2015. Michael Kors is especially feeling this decrease: “our watch business is not healthy in North America,” says John Idol, CEO of the luxury retail company. “Whether that’s something that’s a trend, whether that’s driven around other entries into the category, we’re not exactly 100 per cent sure.” CJ
