Apple Vision Pro
Apple has cut its shipping estimates for the Vision Pro headset in 2024, according to a veteran Apple analyst.
TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said Apple has reduced its yearly forecasts for the headset to between 400,000 and 450,000 units, down from original projections of up to 800,000.
As Kuo noted, this move comes ahead of the Vision Pro’s launch outside of the U.S., suggesting it has already directly impacted production plans.
Demand in the U.S. has “fallen sharply beyond expectations,” after a no doubt strong initial wave of orders from the most ardent of Apple fans.
This is not the first story in recent months about poor sales of virtual reality and mixed reality headsets.
In March, Bloomberg reported Sony had halted production of the PSVR2, as stocks of the headset were piling up in warehouses.
This followed a much earlier Bloomberg story from January 2023 that Sony had already significantly reduced its production order based on relatively low pre-orders.
What do the two headsets have in common? They are both expensive, and Apple’s headset belongs in an entirely different league, at $3,500.
There’s more bad news. Ming-Chi Kuo said plans for a new Vision Pro model in 2025 have been shelved. Early reports suggested this may have been a more affordable version, opening up Apple’s “spatial computer” concept to a wider audience.
This begs the question: does Apple already consider the Vision Pro a failed experiment, at least in a commercial sense?
Even the most popular headset series, the Meta Quest, has had its issues recently. Meta has admitted a struggle in keeping Quest users engaged post-purchase, in statements made in mid-2023.
The Quest 3 was credited with Meta Reality Lab’s record-breaking Q4 2023 revenues, announced in February. However, there were brilliant discounts available on the Quest 2 in that period, too, which led to huge sales of the older model.
