BackHow Apple’s iconic products fared in their first year of sales
Will the Apple Watch follow the trend of the iPhone, iPod and the iPad?
Premium(David Paul Morris/Bloomberg)
The Apple Watch is finally here. Starting at a price of $349, the latest gadget from Apple Inc. is available in 38 models across three ranges, in two case sizes of 38mm and 42mm each
Analysts project the sales of the Apple Watch to soar during the course of the year, with estimates projecting anywhere between 24 million units (UBS) to 30-40 million units (Morgan Stanley) to be sold in 2015.
With Apple already being hailed as the most valuable company of all time, with a market capitalization of $750 billion, the Apple Watch could only propel it further, according to a report in The Guardian. It quotes Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst, who suggests “the shares could be worth $160 in a year’s time, which would value the company at $934 billion."
The Apple Watch is the latest in a series of shiny gadgets from the consumer electronics giant based in Cupertino, California. Here, we take a look at its worthy predecessors, starting with the iconic iPod in 2001.
iPod
The popular portable media player was launched on 23 October 2001 at Apple’s Cupertino campus in California. Apple’s then CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPod with 5GB storage, priced at $399. At the launch, Jobs (who died in 2011) said, “To have your whole CD library with you at all times is a quantum leap when it comes to music. You can fit your whole music library in your pocket." Less than a fortnight later, on 10 November, it was officially available for sale. By the end of that year (31 December), it sold nearly 125,000 units.
In March 2002, Apple launched a second iPod (from the same generation), this time with a storage capacity of 10 GB, priced at $499. In July that year, it rolled out its second generation of iPods, which featured a touch-wheel. In March 2003, 14 months after its launch, Jobs at a MacWorld Expo keynote said that Apple sold 600,00 units since its launch.
In many ways, the iPod, along with iTunes, Apple’s music management software, changed the way people consumed music. It also generated a so-called halo effect, with iPod users going on to buy other Apple products. However, after its sales peaked in 2008, the iPod has been witnessing a steady decline since 2009, with Cook confirming that the iPod was a “declining business" for Apple.
iPhone
The development of the iPhone, Apple’s iconic smartphone offering, began as a confidential project in 2004 titled “Project Purple". It was unveiled on 9 January 2007, at a MacWorld 2007 convention in San Francisco. The first generation of the phone was available for sale on 29 June 2007, with two initial models—4 GB ($499) and 8 GB ($599) offered with a two-year contract.
Over the next five quarters, the first generation iPhone sold 6.1 million units, thanks to the cult following of Apple’s products and the runaway success of the iPod.
In its first quarter of 2015, Apple had sold a total of 74.50 million units of the iPhone—now in its sixth generation, available in two categories—the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.
The iPhone, now in its eighth year, is regarded as a game-changer in the communications industry. Jobs in 2007 said, “the phone was not just a communication tool, but a way of life."
iPad
Following the initial success of the iPhone, Apple soon brought out iPad, the tablet computer. A familiar product category for Apple, which earlier dabbled in tablets with the Newton MessagePad 100 and the MessagePad 2100 in the late 1990s, the iPad was reportedly in the making even before Apple entered the mobile computing business in 2007. Jobs showed off the iPad in January 2010 in San Francisco. Two months later, in March 2010, Apple started taking pre-orders for the iPad, which first sold in the US on 3 April 2010.
Some 30,000 units were sold on the first day of availability, and exactly a month later on 3 May 2010, it breached the million mark in sales. By the end of 80 days, Apple sold nearly three million iPads. Before the launch of the iPad 2, the tablet’s second generation, Apple sold 15 million units.
In 2012, Apple launched the iPad mini, a smaller version, and a year later, it offered a thinner version called the iPad Air. The latest versions include the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3, which were unveiled and available for purchase in October last year.
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