Study: Only 22 Percent of Apple Watch Orders Shipped In First Weekend

Without exactly saying so, Apple (AAPL) made it clear that it hoped demand for its Apple Watch outstripped supply once it opened for online pre-orders of the device on April 10.

As the vendor likely hoped would happen, so frenzied were the pre-orders for the Watch that within six hours of the opening bell all models of the device had feverishly sold out with backorders set at a minimum of 4 – 6 weeks to ship.

Apple retail boss Angela Ahrendts subsequently back pedaled from the April 24 date to begin sales in Apple Stores, telling staffers in a memo the vendor will continue to restrict ordering to online only at least through May.

So, when Apple began Watch shipments to fill early pre-orders on April 24 as expected, how many buyers actually received their model in the first weekend wave of shipments from April 24 – 26?

Not too many, according to early research from Slice Intelligence, which found that about 376,000, or 22 percent, of the 1.7 million Apple Watches ordered were delivered to U.S. shoppers on the first weekend of shipments.

Another 547,000 watches are expected to ship beginning on April 27 and continuing through June 11. So far, there’s no word–as in no scheduled delivery date–from Apple when an additional purchased 647,000 Watches will end up in U.S. shoppers hands.

Slice’s data indicated that 33 percent of pre-ordered Apple Watches will be shipped in April, 28 percent are slated for a May delivery, 1 percent for June, with the remaining 38 percent unknown at this point.

The question remains as to why Apple seemingly hatched a product availability plan that left it months behind to fulfill demand and makes customers wait not just for weeks but months to get the device. You can almost hear Apple clucking, “It’s that cool,” in crafting its retail sales and marketing strategy for the Watch.

Slice derived its data from e-receipt shipping notifications sent to its panel of 2 million online consumers, the researcher said.