US Vision Pro sales likely to fall 75% this quarter – IDC

Market intelligence company IDC has been monitoring US Vision Pro sales, and says the current data indicates they will plummet by 75% this quarter.

The firm believes the device won’t achieve 500k sales in its first year, and that only the launch of a cheaper model can drive growth …

US Vision Pro sales

Companies like IDC use a wide variety of data to estimate unit sales of Apple products. These include large-scale panels of both consumers and businesses, where penetration rates – the percentage of panellists who own a device – are scaled-up to match the US population.

Bloomberg reports the company’s latest estimates.

The $3,500 Vision Pro mixed-reality headset has yet to sell 100,000 units in a quarter since its launch in the US in February, and it faces a 75% drop in domestic sales in the current quarter, according to market tracker IDC […]

A more affordable edition — which IDC estimates would cost roughly half as much — should rekindle interest in 2025, but sales may not rise meaningfully over the coming year, IDC said.

Essentially, the company is suggesting that almost all the early adopters in the US who wanted to buy the spatial computer have already done so, meaning there will only be a trickle of domestic sales from the point.

This will, however, be offset by international sales. Vision Pro last month went on sale in three more countries, with five more following this month.

A cheaper device is key

Apple itself is said to have been disappointed by Vision Pro sales, and to have abandoned plans for a second generation of the Pro model. Instead, the company is focusing all its efforts on a lower-cost, consumer-level model.

Many have suggested that a second Apple Vision product would need to hit a price point of around $1,500 to achieve consumer appeal. The company is reported to be struggling to reduce costs sufficiently to make this kind of price viable.

One obvious route is to abandon the EyeSight front display which most feel is simply a useless gimmick.

Another reportedly under consideration is to have the consumer model be a tethered device, likely powered by a Mac. I argued that this would an acceptable compromise, and the vast majority of you agreed with me.

Photo by Roméo A. on Unsplash