In a note to clients — as reported by Barron’s (http://tinyurl.com/ob8bgmz) — UBS analyst Steve Milunovich says his research indicates that people aren’t that interested in the Apple Watch. At least not yet.
“Search interest has deviated lower relative to an index of 30 consumer electronics introductions and the first iPad and iPhone releases—the week of launch, the Watch is about 20% of iPad and iPhone interest,” says Milunovich. “We now think about 7% rather than 10% of the expected iPhone 5/6 average installed base of 430 million in F16E is likely to buy a Watch.”
Still he says that UBS is “long-term bullish” on the Apple smartwatch. Milunovich’s evidence comes from an index of search requests:
“We created an index of search interest for 30 consumer electronics launches in the US as well as for the first iPhone and iPad (Figure 3). The initial value is based on search interest at the time the product was announced,” he says. “The Apple Watch had been performing in line with the index until the T-2 period, when pre-orders became available. Since then, search interest has deviated lower against both an index of 30 consumer electronics introductions and the release of the iPhone and iPad.”