Gene Munster predicts that the Apple Watch will have its breakout year in 2017, with sale estimates to jump to a whopping 40 million units.
Apple is set to reveal its financial results covering the last three months, which led analysts to focus on the Apple Watch's sales performance that will be included for the first time in Apple's report. Apple, however, will not be dealing with sales figures, leaving investors with no other option to but to make an educated guess.
Munster, a top Apple analyst, claims that the Apple Watch has more than 3 million units sold during the quarter. In 2016, it is expected to reach around 14 million unit sales.
"We continue to believe the adoption of the Watch will take place and remain confident that the CY17 will be the breakout year for the Watch as [we] units going to 14 million in CY16 to 40 million in CY17, accounting for around 9 percent of revenue in CY17," said Munster.
In contrast, KGI's Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple shipped 3.9 million units of the Apple Watch, the number being slightly higher than Munster's claim.
Kuo further claims that Apple will launch new color options for the Apple Watch for the wearable to aesthetically match the upcoming iPhone. Some of the predicted color options include Yellow Gold and Rose Gold in anodized aluminum material. This means that the new iPhone 6s will likely come in gold options and will be designed in such a way that would allow it to be easily matched with the Apple Watch.
While it is true that there are third-party coating services that are currently available for the Apple Watch, the new additions are solely meant for the aluminum build as opposed to the steel version.
Apart from the Apple Watch, KGI also predicted sales performance of other well-loved Apple products. For the iPhones, sales are predicted to reach 54.2 million units. The iPads will enjoy 8.8 million units sold while Macs will have 5.4 million. Likewise, KGI's report noted a decline on iPad sales by around 30 percent. It added that China was the number one factor for the impressive sales number of the iPhone.
Apple may have its own reasons for not revealing the exact number of Apple Watch sales on its earnings report. However, the company is happy to announce that things are going great as far as the wearable is concerned.
