After a huge burst of initial sales, purchases of the Apple Watch may have fallen as much as 90 percent, according to reported data from research firm Slice Intelligence.
While the company may have sold as many as 1.5 million timepieces, or about 200,000 a day, at its launch, today the company is selling far less—about 20,000 a day, Slice estimated in data shared with Marketwatch.
(UPDATE: Slice has since clarified that it only measures online sales, and it’s possible Apple Watch sales could have shifted to the company’s retail stores. Whilie Apple initially declined comment, it has since disputed the report.)
Slice believes that two-thirds of the sales have been in the lowest-end Sport model, which retails for $349. It’s sold fewer than 2,000 of the 18k gold high-end Edition model in the United States, it claims.
Palo Alto, Calif.–based Slice collects data from electronic receipts sent to an opt-in mailing list. It measures only U.S. sales.
Slice is not the only observer that sees falling sales.
According to Business Insider, Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves wrote that “store visits, Google search volume, third-party data, and recent supply checks all suggest demand for Apple Watch has fallen sharply from initial levels.”
Apple has said it will not provide sales data for the Apple Watch, although CEO Tim Cook said orders have been “great.”
Jeff Williams, the company’s senior vice president of operations, was a little more restrained, telling Re/Code that the Watch has sold “a lot, but not enough.”
“Demand divided by supply is greater than one, so that’s all I’ve got for you,” Williams added, noting the company feels it’s too soon to provide sales info.
“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,” he said.
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