We don’t even have to look at Apple’s financial results to know that Apple’s best seller is the iPhone. Before he arrived, however, there was a king who put the Apple on top: the iPod.
Of course, today, no product can compare to sales of the iPhone, but it is undeniable that the iPod reached great sales brands in its time.
For those who try to compare the Apple watch with the company’s smartphone to claim that it was not successful, perhaps rethink when seeing this analysis of Asymco.
According to analyst Horace Dediu, soon Apple Watch sales in a quarter will go surpass the biggest brand that the iPod has ever had.
Looking at the chart above, we can compare the sale of the two products on the timeline. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Beats headsets helped to boost sales, although it was not possible to assess how much specifically. In the Watch section, you can see an interesting growth.
Still, it’s important to remember that Apple doesn’t officially disclose Watch numbers in its financial results, leaving it in the “other products” group (other than Macs, iPads and iPhones), which also includes Apple TV, AirPods, among others. The method used is: once it is possible to estimate the number of products sold “except Apple Watch”, the remaining numbers represent the watch. So, the numbers are “confirmed” based on how much growth the company reports – in the last three quarters, for example, there was an increase of more than 40%.
The Apple Watch Series 3 and its ability to connect via 4G / LTE may be one that will further boost watch sales. Dediu said that his numbers could exceed the quarter of highest profit for the iPod, which was US $ 4 billion in the last three months of 2007. The forecast is that this will happen in the fourth quarter of 2018.
From a revenue perspective, I believe that the fourth quarter of next year will be when the watch will generate more revenue than the highest quarter for the iPod.
In terms of annual unit sales, it may take longer. The biggest year for iPod units was in 2008, when about 55 million iPods were sold. The clock is now being used by about 16 million people. If it could sustain a 30% growth, it would take until 2022. With the 40% growth it would mean 2021 and 50%, only in 2020.
Dediu also said that this growth could make Watch manage to become the third or even the second most popular product from Apple.
Even if it doesn’t happen so soon, overcoming the iPod – which was once “synonymous with Apple itself”, he says – is really quite an achievement. And there are still people who think that the Apple Watch “didn’t work”…
via Daring Fireball
