Despite strong sales on its launch, Apple Vision Pro appears to be struggling to find a foothold in the market, and one top insider reports that it could cause Apple to pause its 2025 refresh.
The Vision Pro, Apple’s spatial reality headset, is designed to be worn with everyday work. Thanks to the ability to create and place screens in your virtual space, you can connect it to the best Macs and work from all around your house. Then, when you’re done for the day, you can watch some of the best Apple TV Plus TV shows without having to take it off. It’s an intriguing concept but, at $3499, it is quite an investment. The headset appeared to do well at launch with rich early adopters and influencers but sales appear to have trailed off since.
What went wrong?
According to Ming-Chi Kuo, a top Apple insider, Apple has “cut its 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400-450k units (vs. market consensus of 700-800k units or more).’ If true, this means that sales are significantly below expectations, and this could affect the future of the device. With it set to launch outside of the US at some point in the future, Kuo says these shipment figures could make “Apple take a conservative view of demand in non-US markets”.
Not only could this negatively impact future shipments, but it could also result in Apple canceling or delaying the new Apple Vision Pro model that was rumored to launch in 2025. Kuo reports the new model was originally going to launch at some point in the second half of 2025 but “Apple now expects Vision Pro shipments to decline YoY in 2025.” Kuo says that Apple Vision Pro’s central challenges are the lack of applications, price point, and comfort to use. Late last year, it was reported that Apple was working on a cheaper Apple Vision Pro with lower-resolution displays. Hopefully, this can address some of the spatial headset’s biggest problems. It is unclear right now what the shipment decline will mean for Apple’s headset going forward.
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