Apple Vision Pro a big hit in enterprise
During the Apple earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook shared that half of Fortune 100 companies have purchased Apple Vision Pro units.
Apple Vision Pro is making a splash in enterprise
Apple Vision Pro is the first spatial computer from Apple and has proven to be a controversial entry in the product lineup. It launched in February 2024, and very little has been shared about how it is selling.
There isn't a line item in Apple's earnings for Apple Vision Pro, but CEO Tim Cook shared a tidbit of interest during the Q2 earnings call. He said Apple Vision Pro has been purchased by half of Fortune 100 companies.
Enterprise markets have been a target by competing headsets like the now defunct Microsoft Hololens. Despite the expected pundit dismissal of Apple Vision Pro as a glorified dev tool, it seems to have at least penetrated the enterprise.
Later in the call, CFO Luca Maestri revealed some of the enterprise uses for Apple Vision Pro. Those include Aircraft engine design at KLM Airlines, team collaboration at Porsche, and kitchen design at Lowe's.
It is also being used to develop spatial computing apps for the platform. We've already seen apps from companies like Gucci that take advantage of Vision Pro features.
At the conclusion of the earnings call, an analyst managed to slip in one final question about Apple Vision Pro and enterprise use. Cook is impressed by how enterprise use of Apple Vision Pro has a pattern similar to the Mac -- it's being used for everything.
"People are using it for many different things in enterprise, and that varies from field service, to training, to health care related things like preparing a doctor for pre-op surgery or advanced imaging, control centers, and so it's an enormous number of different verticals," Cook said. "And our focus is on growing that ecosystem and getting more apps and more and more enterprises engaged, and the event that we had recently, I can't overstate the enthusiasm in the room."
The $3,500 face computer isn't for everyone, but it has found a niche early in its life cycle. Expect to hear more about Apple Vision Pro during WWDC in June when Apple reveals visionOS 2.0.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Soon, it will be "Air" for consumers.
Then it came the iPhone… and a big demand of using it in the enterprise —pushed by CEOS— opened not only the door for cellphones… sorry Blackberry… but also for laptops… If given the choice… employees prefer Apple devices.
Now… it seems that the Vision Pro is going directly to the enterprise.
Maybe companies are just… testing it… but who knows what would happen next.
(As a master in marketing… Tim said that 50% Fortune 500 companies ‘bought’ Vision Pros… but did not commented if they returned those after the two weeks return widow.)
At delivery or after the window closes for a return.
Anyway, this talk suggests that Apple sees this as following the same pattern as the Laptop rollout 20 or so years ago. Probably a little faster overall.
I know of one organization (I will obviously not name them here) that bought TEN of them. I also saw from my own experiences with demos, that business use was going to be big. I sold one unit to a customer who has a commercial solar energy company. He didn't even want to bother with a demo. Said he had read and saw enough about it to know that would be very useful in his line of work.
The last brainstorm on enterprise at Apple Marketing probably ended like this: "we should do Xserve socks".
That feature means it was intended from early on to be used in a shared setting like an office.
The marketing we see from Apple is all consumer focused so they primarily focus on consumer activities and usage cases. Something like using AVP during surgery isn't a consumer activity.
Moreover enterprise marketing is more believable when it is verifiable testimonials from actual customers, not some squawking from a marketing group. It's something like someone at FedEx saying "we used solution X from company Y to help us achieve Z saving us $millions and _____ hours". Or a surgeon that actually performed a procedure with someone in the operating theater wearing and using AVP to ensure a more accurate and speedy outcome.
So even if the initial marketing is targeted to consumers, there may be some intent to just get awareness that the device exists to the corporate market.
Remember the original iPad? The demographics of the early adopters were incredible. People with incomes over $100K, mostly professionals (physicians, scientists, engineers, etc.). Today a big part of iPad's sales are enterprise. iPads are electronic flight bags for multiple airlines, etc. But you can't market it that way in your consumer advertisement.
In summary: marketing communications isn't just one flavor (consumer). There are multiple ways to market a product or service depending on the target audience. Apple can't come out and say "Widget Q will save your company ____ dollars/hours." They need someone to use it and say "Widget Q saved our company _____ dollars/hours."
If you have worked at a company that has multiple channels (retail, wholesale/B2B, etc.) you will understand. And not all enterprise is the same. The message to a healthcare organization will likely be very different than the message to a government customer.
Companies like Apple have many marketing teams that focus on enterprise. They call on big corporate customers and often create specialized tech demos: "here's how someone running ____ CAD software would interact with this 3D model using AVP" or "here's how you can optimize your production workflow by using these data visualization tools to identify bottlenecks." That sort of stuff would cause Joe Consumer's eyes to glaze over.
So while one team might be calling on General Motors, another team might be calling on Pfizer. And a third team might be calling on the US Navy. And we'll never get to see their marketing collateral or tech demos. Because we're not the intended market.
Again, anyone who spend time working for a Fortune 500 company (in a non-retail/telephone support role) may understand this.
That doesn't mean AVP will be useful to these corporations or that they will quickly purchase 100 more. But, it does mean that at least 51% of the LARGEST public companies in the US are curious as to whether or not it can be useful.
Historically, Apple has had trouble in the enterprise, mostly because dollar for dollar Macs were simply too expensive to purchase "for the rank and file" -- a $400 brick connected to a crap monitor is really all that the vast majority of employees need, in most sectors and departments. Macs are reserved for specific industries and departments within these organizations (tech, creative, etc.).
I doubt these companies raced out to purchase "Apple Watches" when those were released, and those were cheap compared to the AVP. This is a pretty big deal, maybe not today, but in the near future.