We’re back in the Apple Watch sales numbers game: Apple released its Apple Watch 11 weeks ago – on April 24th. Now you can read all over the net, that the Apple Watch sales numbers are in free fall, plunge 90%:
- Brett Arends on Market Watch: “Opinion: Apple Watch sales plunge 90%”
- Luke Graham on CNBC: “Apple Watch online sales plunge 90% in US: Report”
- N-TV in Germany: “Absatz um 90 Prozent eingebrochen: Apple Watch entwickelt sich zum Flop”
But Apple did not release any sales numbers of the Apple Watch. So, where did they get the numbers? And are they right?
To get straight to the point: No, absolutely not. Apple Watch sales numbers did not drop 90%. And I’ll explain why.
All these articles are based on some numbers published by Slice Intelligence. Their numbers are interesting – but those numbers are worthless, if you refuse to set them into context. That’s what we need to do:
How does Slice Intelligence get those numbers?
Slice Intelligence is the data mining side of a coin … flip it, and there is Slice, a service more than 2 Million Americans are using for shopping convenience. Those consumers share their private email account with Slice so that they can scan their inbox for receipts. Slice Intelligence collects, analyses, aggregates and projects that data to the whole American population. Then they sell that knowledge – or use it as pr material to get in the news.
Sounds interesting, but where is the mistake?
Let’s tear the numbers apart, step by step:
- Fewer than 2,000 Apple Watch Edition have been sold so far: Sorry, guys but I cannot imagine that too many people, who spend ten-thousands of Dollars for a watch joined a service which offers package tracking in return of opening your private email. So, compared to the real sales numbers in the U.S,, the error must be huge.
- Apple sold fewer than 20,000 watches a day in the U.S. and sales numbers are pointing downwards in June: Guess what: Apple started to sell Apple Watches offline at their Apple Stores in June. This way, those sales disappear from the sales number charts of Slice.
My conclusion: Context is king – the insights from Slice Intelligence are interesting but have to be interpreted in context. Those numbers without context are useless. The only thing we know, when looking at the Apple Online Store is, that Apple has managed to ramp up production to the demand, now. Most models are available within 5 days. Maybe, Apple reveals their real Apple Watch sales numbers. But until then, we honestly do not know them!