Cook: Apple Watch sales accelerating, new health features in development

Apple Watch health fitness white blue

Apple CEO Tim Cook discussed a variety of topics at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.D Live conference last night in Laguna Beach, California, including confirming pre-sales for the new Apple TV next Monday and revealing that Apple Music currently has 6.5 million paid customers.

And while Cook was mum on Apple Watch sales—”We don’t want to give information to competitors,” he said—he did allude to additional health-related functions coming to Apple’s wearable platform in the future.

“The health aspect of the watch has a long product road map ahead of it,” said Cook. He added that a lot of people seem to appreciate health and fitness aspects of the product.

“That’s certainly been true for me,” he explained.

The CEO maintains that Apple won’t be reporting watch sales for competitive reasons. “We are not announcing the numbers. This is competitive information,” he said.

“I don’t want to help the competition,” said Cook, adding that Apple “shipped a lot the first quarter, then last quarter we shipped even more.”

Cook hinted that Apple Watch sales have been accelerating following the device’s April 2015 launch, part of which can be contributed to new points of sale and countries being added to the sales mix on a regular basis.

”I can predict this quarter we will ship even more,” he said. Asked why the device isn’t indispensable, Cook responded by saying that “you should give it a chance” and reiterated that customer satisfaction for the watch has been “off the charts.”

The executive fielded questions regarding the possibility of an Apple Watch that won’t have to be tethered to the iPhone, to which he quipped “I don’t want to tell you that.”

And here are Cook’s thoughts on Apple’s culture.

As we reported separately, Cook has confirmed that pre-sales for the new Apple TV are kicking off next Monday, October 26, with first shipments arriving toward the end of next week. We also learned that Apple Music has convinced 6.5 million users to pay for the service past the free three-month trial.

Source: The Wall Street Journal