Not knowing how many Apple Watches were available for pre-sale before they ran out on Friday, it’s impossible to say for certain how many units were sold. [See update below]. Meanwhile, we’ve learned something about the distribution of the early adopters’ orders.
Among the one in 10 respondents who told BMO Capital Markets before pre-orders began that they planned to buy an Apple Watch, their preferences were:
- 60% aluminum ($349-$399)
- 12% stainless steel ($449-$1,099)
- 4% gold ($10,000-$17,000)
- 24% undecided
.
Judging from the Sunday morning reader polls we’ve seen, the undecideds broke heavily for the mid-range ($449-$1,099) stainless steel.
The survey results we’ve seen:
- 55.8% aluminum
- 38.9% steel
- 2.8% gold
.
- 58.8% aluminum
- 38.9% steel
- 2.3% gold
.
MacRumors/Forums (1,054 respondents)
- 38.3% aluminum
- 55.8% steel
- 5.9% gold
.
Today’s iPhone (340 respondents)
- 57.1% aluminum
- 40.1% steel
- 3.2% gold
.
Apple’s wider offerings in stainless steel — with more bands and bodies to choose from — probably helped up-sell customers, pushing them toward the higher-priced models. Note the preponderance of steel configurations on display in the company’s stores and on its website:
- 10 aluminum (26%)
- 20 steel (53%)
- 8 gold (21%)
.
UPDATE: Late Sunday Slice Intelligence, drawing on data from a pool of 2 million online shoppers, estimated that 957,000 people in the U.S. Pre-ordered an Apple Watch on Friday, spending an average of $503.83 per watch. By their count, 62% chose the aluminum model.
- Those who chose aluminum spent $382.83 per watch
- Those who chose steel spent $707.04 per watch
.
Note that Slice’s estimates do not include pre-orders from Europe or China. We asked three analysts to extrapolate and got three different answers. See How many Apple Watches were sold worldwide last weekend?
See also: Apple Watch (nearly) sold out in 30 minutes
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.