The Apple Watch may be a small fraction of Apple’s business compared to the iPhone, but a new piece of research by Asymco suggests that it may be on the verge of overtaking Apple’s biggest pre-iPhone money spinner: the iPod.
Calculating earnings
The Apple Watch arrived at roughly the time Apple stopped reporting iPod sales. While Apple hasn’t ever released exact Apple Watch sales, Asymco points out that it is possible to predict how well it is doing by analyzing the “Other” category in Apple’s earnings, where the sales figures for non-iPad, non-iPhone, non-Mac products are recorded. After doing this for the first six quarters of the Apple Watch’s life, further growth on the Watch than then be ascertained using Apple’s own statements that growth has increased by more than 40 percent during the past three quarters.
With the LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 3 currently proving the most popular Apple Watch model yet, Asymco notes that the Apple Watch could overtake the iPod’s business ever earnings quarter — $4 billion for the last three months of 2007 — in the fourth quarter of 2018.
“From a revenue point of view, I believe next year’s fourth quarter will see the Watch generating higher revenues than the highest quarter for the iPod,” Asymco’s report states. “In terms of yearly unit sales it may take longer. The biggest year for iPod units was 2008 when about 55 million iPods shipped. Watch is now running at about 16 million. If it could sustain 30% growth then it would take until 2022. 40% growth would mean 2021 and 50% 2020.”
The report notes that the Apple Watch may eventually become the second or third most popular Apple product of all time. Considering that Apple is unlikely to ever be considered a “watch company,” those figures are even more impressive. Hey, there’s a reason Apple’s on track to become a $1 trillion company in the near future.
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Source: Asymco
