The “disappointing” Apple Watch has seen an estimated 957,000 sales on its first day of pre-orders in the United States alone, filing as better-than-expected initial success than its first iPhone or the iPod. By comparison, Apple sold a millionth iPhone after 74 days. It took 28 days to get to that milestone with the iPad and two years with the iPod.
According to a poll of 9,080 online shoppers by Slice Intelligence, which measures digital commerce by tracking consumer e-receipts, an average of 1.3 Watches were purchased per customer, with $503.83 spent per item, indicating some fans bought more than one device.
The pricier Apple Watch Edition was not included in the report. Apple started taking online pre-orders for the wearable device last Friday. One million sales in just 24 hours — and in the United States alone — is certainly an impressive number in and of itself.
Availability was limited and the device would sold out fast, indicating the company could have sold even more Watches if it weren’t for constrained supply.
Context: more #AppleWatch units sold in three days of availability than combined #AndroidWear shipments last year
— Christian Zibreg (@dujkan) April 13, 2015
The entry-level $349 Apple Watch Sport with aluminum case was most popular model with 62 percent of pre-orders. Those ordering the Sport spent $382.83 per unit and folks who opted for the mid-tier stainless steel Apple Watch spent $707.04 on average, the survey concluded.
As the charts shown here prove, many Watch buyers who bought the pricier model opted for the cheapest band, with more than one-third (28 percent) adding a black or white Sport band, followed by the steel Milanese Loop (25 percent), the Link Bracelet (fourteen percent), black Classic Buckle (twelve percent) and white Sport band (eight percent).
In terms of Watch cases, the Space Gray aluminum one was expectedly the most popular, followed by stainless steel, silver aluminum and Space Black stainless steel cases. Most people picked up the larger 42 mm case (71 percent), but Sport fans were slightly more likely to choose the 38 mm case, with 32 percent purchasing the smaller version, versus 24 percent of Apple Watch buyers.
A whopping 72 percent of Watch buyers purchased an Apple product in the past two years, with 21 percent of them having bought an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus months ago. This was expected because the Watch is seen as an iPhone sales engine because it requires an iPhone to function.
Slice’s data does not include estimates for the entire opening weekend nor does it provide pre-order data for Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, China and Hong Kong, where the Watch also launched last Friday.
Apple has yet to confirm the number of Watches pre-ordered, but I won’t be surprised if the company announces a total of two million opening weekend sales later today.
Source: Slice Intelligence