Almost 1m Americans have pre-ordered an Apple Watch, mostly the cheapest model

13 Apr 2015

After months of anticipation, the Apple Watch went on pre-order sale on Friday, 10 April, with news that just fewer than 1m Americans – 957,000 – have ordered the watches, with the majority ordering the cheapest model.

Much debate has taken place regarding how the general public will react to the three watches being offered by Apple, ranging from the cheapest Sport edition costing US$349, to the incredibly expensive US$17,000 Gold Edition version, and whether it will see the same reaction as iPhones.

Based on data obtained by Slice Intelligence, 9,080 e-receipts were examined, which indicated that, on average, every customer was spending US$503.83 on each watch, with those purchasing the Sport edition paying an average of US$382.83 for each watch, while those purchasing the middle-ground Apple Watch were paying in the region of US$707.04.

Given the rather high costs of Apple’s products, it was unsurprising to find that 62pc of those buying the Apple Watch opted for the Apple Watch Sport, with 28pc of those going for the cheapest black sport band.

Interestingly, however, a close second to the black sport band (US$49) was the slightly more fashionable Milanese loop (US$149), accounting for a quarter of all Apple Watch band purchases.

Customers will start receiving their orders after the Apple Watch range is officially released on 24 April.

Apple Watches image via Ryan Ozawa/Flickr

Colm Gorey was a senior journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com