The Apple Vision Pro headset is displayed at the Apple Store on 5th Avenue in New York City on February 2, 2024.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images
apple The Vision Pro mixed reality headset will be available outside the US starting Friday.
Australian Customers The headsets are already available to purchase as of Friday morning, and the Vision Pro will be available in Canada, France, Germany, and the UK as soon as stores open.
This is the headset Entering the Asian market It will be held on June 28th in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.
At one of Apple’s largest stores, on London’s Regent Street, customers were booking appointments for demos of the Vision Pro. Apple has previously allowed potential customers to try out other gadgets in its stores, but the Vision Pro is an expensive new product.
Staple hardware like the iPhone can usually be pre-ordered online without much fanfare or hands-on testing, but the Vision Pro demo gives Apple a chance to convince people that its headset is worth the $3,499 price tag — significantly more than other mass-market headsets.
Brian Ma, vice president of International Data Corporation, said there are certainly high expectations for Vision Pro because it’s “a relatively new product category that’s pretty far from mainstream,” and it’s also “an Apple product that’s implemented much better than the competition.”
But the challenge will be whether Apple can maintain the excitement of the first few weeks and turn it into sustainable sales, Ma said.
“That will be difficult given not only the current prices being abnormally high but also the fact that the ecosystem of applications and use cases is still evolving,” Ma said in an emailed statement.
In the first quarter, Meta The company maintained its top position in the mixed/virtual reality headset market, but Apple’s recent entry has propelled it into second place, according to the research firm. IDC Report The announcement was made on June 18. ByteDance, Xreal, and HTC also made it into the top five.
“Meta’s Quest 3 and Vision Pro have both helped educate users and inspire developers to create mixed reality content that blends the digital and physical worlds,” IDC said.
Regarding the high price, IDC added, “Unfortunately, this represents a high price to pay for users.”
Apple has reportedly lowered its 2024 sales forecast for the Vision Pro to 400,000 to 450,000 units, down from a previous forecast of 700,000 to 800,000 units, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, an Apple analyst at TF International Securities. The company attributed the lower shipping forecast to a decline in demand..
“Apple expects to ship about 400,000 units this year, almost half of which will be outside the U.S., for a total market of 7.3 million units. Shipments could grow more rapidly once hardware prices fall and applications start to become more useful,” Ma said.
–CNBC’s Arjun Karpal contributed to this report.
