It’s the number Wall Street is most curious about, and the one Tim Cook is least likely to reveal next Tuesday, when Apple delivers its quarterly earnings report.
“I’m not very anxious in reporting a lot of numbers on Apple Watch,” said Cook last fall, “because competitors look for it.”
So unless he changes his mind, the Street will have to make do with the estimates of Apple watchers and the contradictory results from analyses of consumer e-mail receipts—one showing Watch sales soaring, the second—swiftly denounced by Apple aficionados—showing them falling off a cliff.
We’ve made two passes at the estimates of Coins2Day‘s panel of analysts. Although the estimates fell a bit in the fortnight between them, they’re not that far apart.
Two weeks ago, 10 analysts estimated that Apple sold 4.5 million Watches by June 27, when Apple wrapped up its third fiscal quarter.
Today the average of the 27 analysts we’ve heard from—14 professionals and 13 independents—is a bit under 4.1 million.
Below, the individual estimates, with the pros in blue and the amateurs in green.
Click to enlarge.
“Honestly, I haven’t even studied those,” said Tim Cook about the analysts’ Watch estimates the last time he was asked. “We’ve got enough to think about here.”
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at coins2day.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.