Getting your hands on an Apple Watch Series 2 in time for Christmas has become nearly impossible for holiday shoppers.
Demand for the new watch has ticked up to a new level in the last month, according to Apple employees, who told Cult of Mac that stores are selling out of the Apple Watch Series 2 so fast that production can’t keep up.
Apple staff told us today to not even bother waiting in line before stores open to get a watch. Most of the new Apple Watch Series 2 shipments are for customers who ordered their units online weeks ago, and Apple locations won’t have any extra units available.
Apple Watch Series 2 is a hot holiday gift
If you shop in Apple’s online store, you’ll see that shipping times for both the regular and Nike+ versions of Apple Watch Series 2 are now pushed back to the first week of January for most models. You can still get a Series 1 model rather easily, but the new features of the Series 2 have made it one of the year’s most popular gifts.
If you want a Series 2 for Christmas, the best option right now is to check Apple’s website every day to see if units are available for in-store pickup that day. You can also try Best Buy, Target and other stores. If you order an Apple Watch Series 2 online and choose to have it shipped to your house, it likely won’t arrive until after New Year’s Day, although certain models can be found on some retailers’ websites.
Photo: Apple
Apple unveiled the Apple Watch Series 2 at an event in September alongside the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. The new wearable packs GPS, a faster processor, improved waterproofing and a brighter display.
Official sales numbers for the Apple Watch have never been revealed. Some analysts predicted growth for Apple’s wearable would slow this year, but Apple CEO Tim Cook recently revealed that sales have been “off the charts.”
“During the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch was greater than any week in the product’s history,” Cook said earlier this month.
A recent report claimed Apple Watch sales fell 70 percent year-over-year in Q3, but if Apple’s dwindling supplies are any indication, it looks like the wearable is ready to make a comeback in 2017.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
2 responses to “Apple Watch Series 2 is sold out ahead of Christmas”
lol Give the gift of go! Wait just a second!
I added up some birthday monies a month ago and decided it was the right time to get the Apple Watch. Due to needing to pay with a mix of gift cards and cash, ordering online was going to be a hassle so I looked up where to find the watch I wanted. We have 5 Apple stores in Houston so options should be plentiful. However, one 1 store was saying they had an aluminum Watch 2 in stock. (Hmmmm, I thought these things were selling poorly).
When I get there, the nice gentleman tells me he does indeed have 2 Aluminum in stock (and 3 Stainless) but they are both gold colored. Not what I was looking for. I ask him to use his super-secret-Apple-stuff-finder and let me know if any of the other stores have any. Nope. They use the same database as the public does. There is a big shipment coming on the 19th but likely those are already spoken for.
I remembered that Macy’s was also supposed to have them for sale and there was a Macy’s at the other end of the mall. So off I went and they had exactly two Apple Watch Series 2 remaining. Both in aluminum. so I bought one.
So, I don’t know if Tim Cook is underplaying the sales numbers (he claims everything is fine) or if tech pundits are full of crap (they like to say the entire smartwatch sector is a bust) but getting your hands on a new Apple Watch seems to be difficult, at least for the affordable “base” versions. That would tell me there is interest in the category as a whole but maybe more aggressive pricing will open the floodgates to actual purchases.