Does Apple Inc. have its next blowout product on its hands?
You might think so, based on early order trends for the $3,499 Vision Pro headset. Apple
AAPL,
opened up online preorders for the mixed-reality device earlier Friday, and they seem to be flying off virtual shelves, based on quoted delivery times.
While Apple fans can preorder the Vision Pro headset today, they won’t be able to get them until Feb. 2 at the earliest. And while some of the first shoppers may be getting their devices then, those placing orders now likely will have to wait a bit longer: Apple currently estimates that a 256GB Vision Pro without optical inserts would arrive between March 1 and March 8.
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Back in the day, investors trying to glean insights into demand for Apple products would count the number of store visitors lined up for a new iPhone on launch day. But now that online shopping is so prevalent, Wall Street looks at how long delivery times are being pushed out as a potential measure of whether products are popular.
Online delivery times, though, don’t tell a full story. Whether products sell out quickly has to do with the balance of supply and demand, and it remains to be seen whether Apple’s early Vision Pro performance reflects blowout popularity, limited initial stock or some mix of both.
Evercore ISI analyst Amit Daryanani, for his part, was upbeat. “Our experience with purchasing a Vision Pro this morning leads us to believe demand for the product is strong relative to Apple’s expectations,” he wrote in a note to clients.
That delivery times quickly slipped “suggests relatively strong initial demand, although we do concede that Apple has likely planned for limited volumes in the first year,” Daryanani added.
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Apple didn’t reply to a MarketWatch request for comment on Vision Pro preorders or the supply-and-demand balance for the device.
Even when Apple reports earnings, though, it’s unclear how much information Wall Street will get about the device’s sales. Apple still doesn’t break out the sales of its popular Apple Watch, for instance, lumping that product into the Wearables, Home and Accessories category that also houses AirPods and HomePods, among other things.
That said, there might be some clues on early trends when management addresses investors on the company’s next earnings call Feb. 1. And for those who’ve largely forgotten about the Vision Pro — a device Apple teased back in early June — the company released a new video offering a guided tour of the device.
