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Apple has ordered somewhere in the region of five to six million Apple Watch units to make up the initial run of the smartwatch, a new report reveals.
According to people familiar with the matter (via WSJ), Apple has requested that these units are built and prepared for retail before the device’s April launch.
The insider sources also gave a breakdown of the Apple Watch manufacturing run, revealing the gilded Apple Watch Edition makes up the smallest portion of units ordered.
The Apple Watch Sport, meanwhile, claims over half of the manufacturing effort, and unsurprisingly so – it’s Apple’s cheapest watch unit, and will retail for just $349.
The mid-tier Apple Watch will account for a third of the total devices produced, with the gold Edition making up the final sixth.
It’s worth noting that Apple allegedly plans to up production of the Apple Watch Edition in Q2 2015, ramping up output to one million units per month.
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Apple’s last product in a new category was the iPad. The company sold 7.5 million of them in a six-month period, which isn’t drastically far away from the alleged Apple Watch orders.
Interestingly, prior to Christmas we heard reports that Apple had ordered as many as 40 million Apple Watch S1 chips.
It’s not clear whether Apple is stockpiling the majority of the chips for later use, or whether those rumours were in fact false.