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Report: Apple Watch pre-orders shipped to just 22% of US buyers

We already knew Apple was struggling to meet Apple Watch demand, but we may now know by how much.

Research company Slice Intelligence claims Apple only managed to deliver on 22 per cent of Apple Watch pre-orders in the first weekend.

The analysts, writing on a post titled ‘Watching and Waiting’, say that some 376,000 pre-orders were delivered in the US.

That’s out of a total 1.7 million Apple Watch units purportedly pre-ordered by US customers.

A further 547,000 watches are expected to ship between April 27 and June 11, while 639,000 customers will need to wait even longer.

Apple made its fledgling wearable available for pre-order on April 10, with a flurry of wannabe owners quickly pushing back estimated delivery dates.

The Apple Watch then went on sale starting April 24, although no Apple stores had stock on-hand to sell.

The only place in the UK that was actually selling the device on day one was boutique retailer Dover Street Market.

Even that was difficult. Those desperate to snap up the device had to wait for a dedicated phone number to be revealed at an unknown point, after which you had to try calling to make an appointment to buy a Watch. Still, they couldn’t guarantee that they’d have the model you wanted.

Related: Apple Watch vs Android Wear

Carl Howe, a data consultant for Think Big Analytics, claimed that the Apple Watch could become Apple’s most profitable product line last week.

“My belief is that the Apple Watch will become Apple’s most profitable product line ever, with gross margins exceeding 60 per cent,” explained the analyst.

“I’ve built a simple model that predicts that the initial run of watches was more than 3 million units and will yield Apple Watch revenues of over $2 billion for the first two weeks of sales.”

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