Gene Munster: Little Bit Of 'Fanboy Affect' Will Make Apple Watch Sales Touch 1 Million Units

Apple Inc.

is going to launch the Apple Watch in the markets this month and that'll finally decide whether the sceptics are right about it not being a success or not. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster was on CNBC recently to discuss when the sales of Apple Watch will hit 1 million units and what metrics concerning Apple Watch should be investors be looking at. The One Million Mark "Apple said they are not going to disclose the total units by quarter," Munster said. "Now, we think that they may give some indication about how the opening weekend goes which will be April 24, just to put some perspective in that." "So, the answer to question, ‘when do we get to a million units?', we have been surveying about 10,000 people over last year in the U.S. and the attach rate of iPhone owners is about 5 to 7 percent of those iPhone owners say that they are going to get the watch. We assume that, we went back and looked at how many units were sold on that iPhone 6 launch and we assumed 8 percent." Munster continued, "So, little bit of the fanboy effect and we got to a million units. So, there is actually some logic around that. I think, the clear takeaway is this, the first quarter is going to be a decent quarter because of the fanboys, it will probably die-down a little bit and then this really goes vertical year plus from now, it's going to be a big category for Apple, but it's going to take some time." Metrics For Investors Munster was asked what is the most important metric investors should be looking at concerning Apple Watch. He replied, "[…] A slight lift in the gross margins because this is going to be more profitable. That's one thing that investors are going to look at, the second is they are going to look to some of the bigger developers to hear how they are actually building applications for the watch."