Snap's fledgling Spectacles sold just over 63,000 units in March quarter
In a sign of how tough the market for Apple's rumored augmented reality glasses could be, Snap is estimated to have sold a little over 63,800 pairs of Spectacles in the March quarter.
While Snap didn't provide exact numbers in its results, it did admit to making just $8.3 million in its "other revenue" category, according to TechCrunch. Dividing by the Spectacles' $130 pricetag gives a figure of 63,846.
About $4.5 million in Spectacles were sold during the December quarter, or roughly 34,615 units.
Until the February launch of online sales, the Spectacles were essentially an experiment for Snap, sold only through hard-to-find vending machines and a special New York City pop-up store. Even these limited sales only began in November.
The Spectacles are designed to shoot 10- to 30-second clips of first-person video, mainly for sharing in Snapchat, though they can be viewed elsewhere. Footage is shot in a unique circular format, and to dispel privacy concerns, lit rings appear whenever the glasses are recording.
Apple is believed to be developing augmented reality glasses that will ship in 2018, if not later. Exact features are unknown, but the company reportedly has "hundreds" of engineers working in the AR field.
Glasses have so far made little headway in the wearables market. Google's Glass never made it past a developer prototype, and Microsoft's HoloLens has yet to spin off into planned third-party accessories.
Instead the wearables market is still dominated by fitness trackers and smartwatches. The Apple Watch in particular has so far proven successful, although sales are still below those of iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
While Snap didn't provide exact numbers in its results, it did admit to making just $8.3 million in its "other revenue" category, according to TechCrunch. Dividing by the Spectacles' $130 pricetag gives a figure of 63,846.
About $4.5 million in Spectacles were sold during the December quarter, or roughly 34,615 units.
Until the February launch of online sales, the Spectacles were essentially an experiment for Snap, sold only through hard-to-find vending machines and a special New York City pop-up store. Even these limited sales only began in November.
The Spectacles are designed to shoot 10- to 30-second clips of first-person video, mainly for sharing in Snapchat, though they can be viewed elsewhere. Footage is shot in a unique circular format, and to dispel privacy concerns, lit rings appear whenever the glasses are recording.
Apple is believed to be developing augmented reality glasses that will ship in 2018, if not later. Exact features are unknown, but the company reportedly has "hundreds" of engineers working in the AR field.
Glasses have so far made little headway in the wearables market. Google's Glass never made it past a developer prototype, and Microsoft's HoloLens has yet to spin off into planned third-party accessories.
Instead the wearables market is still dominated by fitness trackers and smartwatches. The Apple Watch in particular has so far proven successful, although sales are still below those of iPhones, iPads, and Macs.
Comments
Snap's Spectacles don't implement augmented reality and they're only available in the US.
And I assume that Apple's implementation would be based on the Mac, rather than the iPhone. I assume it would mainly be used at home or in the office, as I'd like to think Apple realise that people will look stupid in public wearing them and make a lot of people feel uncomfortable if they have cameras on them. And if it needs anywhere near as much power as VR, like Oculus, it will be tethered to the Mac.
Sad.
It won't be the last failure in this area.
It will take someone thinking outside the box to come up with a solution that will really work for the long term and for a wider audience.
I think a lot of people are betting on Apple here.
It remains to be seen if they can come up with something great.
The stock dropped 25% yesterday on the quarterly report, as you'd guess.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/10/technology/snapchat-earnings/index.html
Perhaps Apple has the silver bullet. Who knows.
And hence why Apple doesn't release something until it is "ready" - which means solving many problems beyond just "does the product work". This may mean some products take years longer to come to market than one might think.
Consider Apple Watch. Apple rightly concluded that in order to make a "wearable on the wrist" usable, a good portion of population has to "want to wear it". It can't be a fad that is worn a bit, but isn't "fashionable" enough to be worn long term. Lots of tech media like to pour scorn over Apple and their focus on watch bands, not realizing this is one of the keys to the success of the product (and perhaps why other products which do similar functions have never taken off in the same way). Easily interchangeable watch bands were one of the items to "get right" to make the product viable.
IMO it will be a few years before Apple brings any "smart glasses" to market. They will have AR features on the iPhone first, and perhaps years, before said glasses. I do think glasses will come eventually. Who knows, maybe Apple will approach it as "how can we make glasses better" in their own right, while also layering intelligence/AR on top. Expect Apple to focus as much on "frames and style" as they do on the technology.