Wall Street analysts, once blindly optimistic about the potential for the Apple Watch, are now increasingly doubting the predictions of its success.
Andy Hargreaves, an analyst with Pacific Crest, reduced his estimate for Apple Watch sales for the 2015 fiscal year from 11 million to 10.5 million and cut his 2016 estimate by 3 million, citing indications of a rapid slowdown in demand for the flashy new gadget. “Anecdotal evidence suggests Apple Watch demand is slowing quickly,” Hargreaves wrote in an investor note at the beginning of this month.
Earlier this week, Deutsche Bank echoed that concern, calling the watch a "wild card" because Apple has bucked its standard of releasing sales statistics after launch.
"We find it a bit unusual that Apple has not provided an update on sales as typically, Apple provides detail on units shipped for large and successful product launches," the firm wrote in a note obtained by Mashable. "Investors will be disappointed if Apple does not disclose numbers for this new product."
The lingering doubts about Apple Watch sales have helped weigh down Apple stock, which fell 2.5% in trading Wednesday and was down another 1% in midday trading Thursday, putting the stock price at its lowest point in three months. The stock dip comes amid a broader decline in the market this week from the Greece crisis and instability in the Chinese stock market, a country that has quickly become a key growth engine for Apple's overall business.
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Apple will have another chance to reveal -- or obscure -- sales figures for the Apple Watch when the company reports earnings later this month, its first earnings report since the watch went on sale in April. Investors may be disappointed, however: Jeff Williams, the Apple exec in charge of the smartwatch, said in one interview Apple might not release numbers until it becomes material to its business. That could be awhile for a company that generates well over $50 billion a quarter.
That silence bucks with Apple's typical approach to tout vanity numbers for new products, raising the question of whether Apple is staying silent for fear of revealing competitive secrets or for fear of revealing disappointing sales figures for a product intended to prove it can still innovate under CEO Tim Cook.
In the absence of any hard numbers from the company, investors and members of the media have been forced to rely on anecdotal testimony, product reviews (many of them mixed) and unreliable third party data.
Slice Intelligence, a group that tracks data from the online receipts of about 2.5 million U.S. shoppers, put out a report this week estimating that Apple Watch sales have plummeted from roughly 200,000 a day at launch to less than 20,000 per day in June.