A sketchy supply-chain report from Digitimes claims that the second-generation Apple Watch will enter mass production in the second quarter of this year. The report also repeats earlier claims that Apple Watch shipments have fallen below Apple’s own forecasts, stating that the company has decided against adding Foxconn as a second manufacturer for this reason.
Apple originally considered shifting some second-generation Apple Watch orders to Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), but decided to keep all the orders with Quanta as volumes will not be high, the sources noted.
Supply-chain rumors always need to be treated with a great deal of caution, and both Quanta and Foxconn unsurprisingly declined to comment. However, the 2nd-gen timing does tie-in with what our own sources tell us (coincidentally!). We expect Apple to update the Apple Watch in March with new band options rather than new hardware, with a full hardware refresh announced in September.
Apple has so far declined to provide sales figures for the Watch. Deep discounts have fueled speculation about lower-than-expected sales, but there has been no consensus on likely numbers. Asymco’s Horace Dediu recently predicted that Apple will hit 21M sales in the first 12 months, amounting to around $8B in revenue.
There is a small possibility that strong holiday quarter sales may prompt Apple to share numbers for the first time later today, but we’re not holding our breath.
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DigiTimes. Lol. Anyway not surprised this leaks on earnings day.
Really people, really?
Well, Apple can buy back some of their stock.
If the report is from Digitimes then why are you bothering to repeat it? Don’t you know that they are notoriously unreliable?
Nate, editor of The Digital Reader (and gadfly at large)
Because Digitimes isn’t always wrong, because at least part of what it claims matches what we expect. We label reports sketchy when they come from sources with unknown or mixed pedigrees.
Yes, they aren’t always wrong, like a broken clock is right 2 times a day.
I think we’ve reached ‘peak speculation’, it’s getting really boring. If investors are dumb enough to believe a sketchy report from a dubious source, or guess work from ‘experts’ who change their opinion as often as the wind changes direction, good luck to them.
No one but a handful of Apple top brass know whether or not the Watch is meeting expectations. It isn’t designed to be as successful as the iPhone, yet. It’s Apple making sure it commands its future steering technology to better itself and its customers. In ten years when the iPhone is possibly plateauing or declining, it’ll be because Apple will have replaced it with another product of its own, maybe the Watch who knows. Maybe all you’ll need by then is your Apple Car, Apple connected home, Apple Watch, and a iMac/TV hub to cover all your needs 😊
Hopefully Apple’s marketing genii have realised that people have more common sense than they think we do and subsequently they (Apple) will be pricing the next model far more reasonably.
Speaking of which, I do hope they improve the battery life and opt for a less power-hungry display (which I always thought was an overkill for this device).
You can walk into any Sam’s Club or Costco and find watches that are double and triple the price of the Watch. A $25 Timex or Casio is not in the same category just like those $50 Android phones are not in the iPhone’s market. You want a cheap Watch but you are not going to get it nor are you going to get a $100 iPhone.
Or, you can advice him duplicate Chinese Apple Watch, they are cheap
For what it is and does, the price is right. If you think not, Timex is still selling watches in Walmart I imagine.
Like I didn’t expect all the comments recommending me to go buy a Timex. Grow out of it guys.
Other manufacturers make quality mechanical watches and smartwatches at more reasonable value/money ratios. And they don’t charge $450 for a metallic bracelet or $250 for leather bracelets. That’s my opinion and it’s not like I lack a sense of quality (that you guys “have”).
If I’m buying an Watch, I’ll be sticking to 3rd party bracelets (advertised and drooled over even on this very site). And I’ll be waiting for the watch’s price to become more reasonable or at least the battery life to improve (so that I can be forgiven not charging it one night) before I make the jump. I was lucky enough to borrow one for a couple of weeks from a friend (for a software project) and that’s my take on the Watch.
Have fun with the 3rd party straps. Go to Amazon.com and look at the bands that look identical to the Apple sport band. Go through the reviews, a lot of them are positive but bad reviews, but some are actually good reviewers that show the differences between the Apple band and the knockoff and that is in feeling, and seamlessness. Also probably chemical resistance. You get what you pay for.
There are acceptable 3rd party bands but Apple wasn’t selling acceptable bands, they chose to sell premium bands, which is their prerogative.
triankar; mechanical watches (not smartwatches) are off topic. And those can cost thousands of $. With smartwatches, the more closely they match the Apple Watch in features, the higher they cost. And the Apple Watch, as a standard feature. can make/receive a phone call (through an iPhone) without needing a second phone number. Other smartwatches have to kludge things together to do that with 3rd party apps/ear buds etc. Apple Watch also has Apple Pay and Siri. Try something like that with a Pebble or basic Android Wear watch.
– As for good cheaper 3rd party bands, yes, I will get those. But criticizing Apple for their bands makes no sense. Just get a cheaper 3rd party band.
Should battery life be better? Sure. But I expect the 2nd gen to have that.
You are way too self important. Did you see Apple’s results today? I seriously doubt they give two whits what you buy or what 3rd party fakes you buy to impress the waitress at Red Lobster.. Hell knows most people don’t. LOL.
I don’t understand why some people are demanding “better battery life”. It lasts far beyond a full day. Is 2 days enough? Are you going to forget to charge it when you have to keep track of when it should be charged? I take my watch off at night to go to sleep and it sits on its charger.
It would make sense to complain if it didn’t last you through the day, but mine reaches the end of the day with +25% battery left and I use it a lot. Worrying about the battery is not something I have to do.
The Apple Watch absolutely needs a faster processor so that apps open the instant you look at your wrist and tap the icon so if Apple is able to achieve any battery efficiencies in the next version, I would hope and expect that they put that extra juice into speeding the processor, not giving the watch an extra half day of battery. How much battery is enough for you?
Headlines like this are taken as fact by the uninformed public. Headlines like this one are picked up by news algorithms and spread like wildfire. The article makes it clear that this report is suspect but the headline does not. I’m starting to believe that so-called Apple centric websites do more damage to Apple’s public image than any troll on c|net or MacRumors can ever hope to do.
I think Apple should share the sales numbers. Not to shut down the critics, but to give the customers who have bought them (myself included) confidence that this is a product line that is successful enough to warrant continued development. That’s my only worry. If the informal reports are true, then the Apple Watch is a success. I see them on a lot of wrists, so that’s encouraging.
Do you really need sales numbers to bolster the confidence of a decision you made? Sad.
I do think sales numbers would help the App community. If you knew what kind of sales the watch is getting, you might spend the time to develop Apps for the Apple Watch also. If sales are poor, you may not waste your time. If they’re good, maybe better then expected, you may want to spend time, effort and money developing a WatchOS App.
Seems to make the Fandroids feel better chump.
@JB apps on the Apple Watch are garbage. There shouldn’t be apps on it. Glances only. There might be 10 good apps in the existence of the Apple Watch from now until they stop making them.
Sales numbers should be poor because of the lack of features the Apple Watch has. It shouldn’t have been released until they had more sensors than heart rate.
I’m fine with the features of that Apple Watch. I’ve had one since the day that they first released, and I wear it every day. If you don’t have one, you don’t get it. If you do have one, then you obviously don’t know how to use it.
Devices can always have more features. If Apple were to follow your advice, they’d never release anything.
The Apple Watch is a perfectly functional device with plenty of features. I use mine every day for Siri, to glance at notifications and not have to pull my iPhone 6 Plus out of my pocket, to control the lights in my condo, to unlock the door when I get home, to control music, to contribute to my Health app data profile, etc. This is an extraordinary full featured device for a first generation product.
8 Billion Dollars is disappointing? Donate them.
Disappointing to who? Probably not Apple who’s making millions from Apple Warch. I’ve seen more and more people wearing Apple Watch lately, and everyone I talk to loves their Apple Watch. This while I’ve never seen anyone wearing a competing brand of smart watch being worn by anyone, but since they are all traditional looking and round I may have seen one but didn’t know it. That’s why smart Apple made their watch look similar to yheir iPhone with square shape and rounded corners.
Let me get this straight. Supposedly Apple sold more AppleWatches than quite a few companies selling smartwatches combined and actually captured major smartwatch market share along with good profits. Yet, for some reason AppleWatch sales are considered to be disappointing. Why is that? If AppleWatch sales are disappointing, then what about all those other companies’ smartwatch sales? Are they also considered failures?
As a revenue comparison, in less than one year AppleWatch’s $8 billion in revenue would be well ahead of what Amazon is making from AWS which has been operational far longer than Apple has been selling AppleWatches. Last year, Amazon’s AWS generated about $2.1 billion in revenue for one financial quarter but generated less than $8 billion for the entire year and Wall Street was going crazy saying how amazingly wonderful it’s helping Amazon rule the world in cloud services. So, now you have these so-called financial geniuses claiming Amazon’s gains are fantastic but Apple’s gains are disappointing. How does this make any sense at all? My take is there is an awful lot of bias against Apple for reasons I think are rather shady. Revenue is revenue. You can’t say one form of revenue is better than another. What works for one company should work equally as well for another company when there are revenue gains being realized.
There appears to be a concerted effort to disparage anything Apple does and make the company look like a failing company despite there being plenty of other companies actually needing to lay off employees and close down stores in order to survive. It’s just so stupid to try to mislead readers with bad information.
Isn’t
it mind numbing for you guys to spend all your time reporting speculation? What magic door opened to be able to speak authoritatively on Apple’s plans?
who cares?
The same magic door which opened which lets you tell 9to5mac what they can or can’t report on their own website obviously.
Go back and look at the guesses analysts and journalists made before Apple Watch launched. Everyone predicted very, very low sales! Reports now indicate sales far, far higher than what was expected by the media. Yet, the media call it “disappointing”. Again, go back and look at the predictions made 12-18 months ago and compare that to what the same ‘analysts’ are saying now, I think you’ll find a more interesting story.
$8 billion in watch revenue for 1 year is *so* disappointing. It’s only about 1/4 the total revenue that Google has made on Android since the creation of Android ($30 billion since 2008). /s
In my mind anything about $1 should be disappointing to shareholders because if Apple doesn’t drastically raise that number every quarter then they are doomed. So as a shareholder you should be weeping uncontrollably if they come out of the gate doing well because it can only go downhill in your mind from there.
Apple stand alone when it comes to sales and profit so you CANNOT compare their performance with ANY OTHER COMPANY. Apple can only be compared with themselves – and when sales start slowing or don’t do as well as expected people panic. Incidentally, it is completely pointless comparing the profits of a company which makes money off extremely popular and expensive hardware, as well as apps, against a business which makes it’s money from advertising and sales of apps. There is no comparison. Remember Android itself is FREE.
Wonder what they’ll add to make this one sell better. I still can’t find a reason to buy one.
When u buy one and use it fir a few dats…. you will never leave home without it . As is .
21 million units and 8 billion in sales in 1st year is disappointing???
regardless of how well, or not, that apple are doing with the apple watch – i really wish asian countries would see better discounts…
i am tired of seeing the western countries get steep discounts, yet places like japan dont :-(