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 Buyers can take the smartwatch home from a handful of upscale
boutiques and department stores, including The Corner in Berlin,
Maxfield in Los Angeles and Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London,
which Apple courted to help position the watch as a fashion item.
But the gadget will not be sold at Apple stores on Friday. The
company is directing people to order online instead, which should
prevent the long lines of Apple devotees who typically flock to
iPhone and iPad launches.
About 50 people lined up to buy the watch at electronic store Bic
Camera in Tokyo's Ginza district, while at the nearby Apple Store it
was like any other Friday, according to Reuters reporters at the
shops.
"I buy one or two Apple products every time they release something
new," Chiu Long, a 40-year-old IT worker from Taiwan, told Reuters
while queuing up at Bic Camera.
"I like to run, so the heart rate reader is a progress," he added.
At a retail outlet of mobile carrier SoftBank Corp around 20 people
queued to get their hands on the gadget.
"I want to develop my own application that's compatible with the
smartwatch," 27-year-old IT worker Tatsuya Omori said as he waited
in line outside the store.
"I'm also an Apple fan. I simply want it."
Technology lovers and investors keen to find out the components of
the watch were left frustrated, with a tough resin coating
protecting the core computing module from scrutiny.
Gadget repair firm iFixit, which has successfully prised open other
Apple products on their launch day to reveal their components, said
the U.S. company also appeared to be promoting its brand on the
watch's inner workings, complicating detailed analysis of the parts'
origins.
GAUGING DEMAND
The lack of queues at Apple stores will make it hard to judge
popular demand for the watch, which comes in 38 variations with
prices ranging from $349 for the Sport version to $10,000 and more
for the gold Edition.
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Apple has not released any numbers since it opened for pre-orders on
April 10, although many buyers were told their watches would not
arrive for a month or more as supply appeared to dry up.
Wall Street estimates of Apple Watch sales vary widely. FBR Capital
Markets analyst Daniel Ives raised his sales estimate this week to
20 million watches from 17 million, based in part on online order
backlogs.
"There was a question over whether the trajectory and demand for
wearables in the Apple ecosystem was there and real," said Ives.
"But it's a resounding yes."
Apple itself said on Wednesday that some customers will get watches
faster than promised.
"Our team is working to fill orders as quickly as possible based on
the available supply and the order in which they were received,"
Apple said in a statement.
The Cupertino, California company previously predicted that demand
would exceed supply at product launch.
(This story has been refiled to correct typo in subhead)
(Additional reporting by Bill Rigby in San Francisco, Issei Kato in
Toyko and Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Richard Chang,
Stephen Coates and Rachel Armstrong)
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