Apple chief Tim Cook sees the up-coming Apple Watch in a similar vein as the iPod’s debut more than a decade ago. That may be a helpful model for Apple’s investors to keep in mind.
Most look at the iPod as one of Apple’s first home runs. But it’s easy to forget the iconic digital music player took time to build up. When Apple introduced the first model in October 2001, the device had just 5GB of memory, worked only with Macs and cost $399 (equivalent to about $533 today in inflation-adjusted dollars). Only 381,000 units sold the first year.
Revisions like adding more memory, cutting the base price by $100 and making the device compatible with Windows helped significantly. Unit sales more than doubled the second year. After five years, the iPod was selling nearly 40 million units annually, and accounted for about 40% of Apple’s annual revenue.
Many analysts expect the watch to sell that many units in its first year. Apple’s customer base has grown significantly, so that is plausible. Still, smartwatches remain unproven, so Apple’s new timepiece may move on its own clock.
via apple - Google News http://ift.tt/1zXxmkJ
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment