Did Apple Watch Sales Really Drop By 90%?

Analysts are reluctant to believe that Apple Inc.'s AAPL first smartwatch experienced such a steep decline. According to MarketWatch, Slice Intelligence's latest report shows that sales of the Apple Watch have declined by 90 percent. "I figured there would be a summer lull in sales for Apple Watch," Apple expert Sean Udall told Benzinga. "Many current iPhone owners (75 percent of them), have yet to upgrade to new iPhone. Thus, many of these folks are going to get a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S before they get the watch." Previous data from Slice Intelligence has been used by every publication to show how successful the Apple Watch had become. According to Slice's timeline, Apple pre-sold one million units during the first day of the pre-order campaign. The company reportedly sold a total of 2.79 million units by mid-June. On June 29, Slice reported that Apple Watch sales had fallen sharply and were actually below sales of Fitbit Inc FIT. This week Slice revealed that sales had fallen by 90 percent. "Slice Intelligence is not a service that financial or industry analysts rely on for their numbers," Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, told Benzinga. "The biggest thing that people need to understand about the initial sales drop off is that Apple had challenges with supplying demand in the beginning with its Taptic Engine. When consumers are staring at a 60 day lead-time for a product they can't pick up in the stores, they don't place the orders."

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Christmas Saves The Day

Udall may have anticipated a summer lull, but he did not necessarily believe the 90 percent decline was accurate. He maintained his belief that the Apple Watch will be a "big seller" during the holiday shopping season. "The new Watch OS will help -- maybe by a lot," said Udall, who serves as the CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and is the author of The TechStrat Report. "There are killer apps, most of them related to health [and] fitness. The wireless [Apple] Music listening is a huge benefit." Udall thinks that "far too much is being made out of a product that will take one to two more years to really gain traction and move the needle."

Fewer Promotions?

Moorhead attributed the reported declines to supply and demand. "Only now can consumers go into a store and buy watches in the store," he said. "Also note that Apple stopped promoting the watch because of the lack of availability." Moorhead expects the promotions (and subsequent sales) to pick up this fall, but he said Apple will only share exact sales numbers "when the optics look good." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.