On January 19, Apple opened preorders for the Vision Pro — and now we have some idea of how many people got their early orders in for one of the firm's mixed reality headsets.
Since preorders went live, 200,000 units have been preordered, according to MacRumors. Those preorders quickly sold out on launch day as well, so it's likely many of those orders will be shipping after the physical release day on February 2nd.
Big early sales
Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that 180,000 or so headsets had been sold in the week following the preorder announcement, after previously reporting Apple only had 60-80,000 headsets ready for launch weekend. That indicates demand might be considerably higher than Apple had anticipated.
While some buyers might have been put off by the long delivery dates, a spate of positive reviews will still likely get more people interested in buying headsets so numbers might make another jump once reviews and impressions start to drop.
Will interest wane?
Apple Vision Pro is an expensive device with not much in the way of wide appeal. You can see how cool it is in the promos, appreciate what Apple is doing with AR and VR, and then admit that you probably don’t need one.
Now that the early adopters have their preorders in so that they can get the headset as close to release as possible, the real test will be how well the Vision Pro sells once it’s hit shelves properly. How interested are the normal people, those who buy an iPhone, or a MacBook — and Kuo warns that interest and sales will start to drop as the people who are cursorily interested balk at the price.
Apple has a balancing act to do if it wants sales to be good and profits high, as with any expensive product. In this case, however, with the use case so narrow and the price so high, Apple is walking a tightrope between two skyscrapers, juggling plates of Jello.
