SAN FRANCISCO
Apple plans to ship 5 to 6 million units of its new smartwatch, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal in a report published Tuesday.
Those close to Apple’s Chinese supply line claim the company requested that suppliers build that number of Apple Watches during the first quarter in anticipation of the device’s April release.
Apple’s Asian suppliers are hard at work manufacturing three different versions of the smartwatch, with the Apple Watch Sport, the cheapest entry, accounting for roughly 2.5 - 3 million of the requested units, according to the newspaper. The second-tier Apple Watch is the next most-produced version.
A much smaller number of the luxurious Apple Watch Edition is being requested, claim the sources. That product, which includes an 18-karat gold casing, could be one of the most expensive products Apple ever produced. Perhaps, even beating its high-end Mac Pro desktop, which now sells for $4,000.
The only pricing Apple has released has been for the entry-level Sport model, which will start at $349.
Also Tuesday, Apple was granted a patent for a Google Glass-like virtual reality headset to be used with an iPhone. While similar to headsets being released by Google and Samsung, Apple’s originally applied for the patent in 2008 – meaning the California company had been imagining the headset years before other devices gained mainstream exposure.
A patent application, of course, does not mean Apple is actively pursuing a headset. Instead, the Apple Watch will probably be the deciding experiment for the wearables market. If successful, the California company might produce others, but likely not for years from now.
According to a report from analyst Canalys last week, 720,000 smartwatches running Google’s Android Wear operating system shipped last year. The market is small but growing and it remains wide open for Apple Watch to take it over.
Following usual protocol, Apple has refused to comment on the leaked numbers.
