Apple cuts Vision Pro shipments as headset fails to find a market

Apple Vision Pro launched in early February after years of rumors about the company's plans for mixed reality. Ahead of an international expansion, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo confirms what most people already knew: Apple's first spatial computer is a failure.

According to the analyst, Apple has cut 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400-450k units versus the market consensus of 700-800k units or more. With the company cutting shipments even before expanding internationally, this means Apple has taken a conservative view of demand in non-US markets.

That means Apple might not release a new Apple Vision Pro model in late 2025 after all, and it now expects shipments to decline year-over-year in 2025—even though it planned to expand into several new markets over the coming months.

While the initial concern about Apple Vision Pro sales was Sony's issue with producing enough micro-OLED displays, it seems Apple itself won't need the manufacturer's full capacity after all. In his blog post, Ming-Chi Kuo talks about Apple Vision Pro's biggest issues:

"The challenge for Vision Pro is to address the lack of key applications, price, and headset comfort without sacrificing the see-through user experience. In contrast, VR is also a niche market, but at least there are proven successful applications (games), and trend visibility is better than MR."

Image source: Apple Inc.

While WWDC 2024 could renew interest in Apple Vision Pro thanks to visionOS 2.0, it's unclear what key features Apple could add. Several core apps available in other Apple products still aren't available for the spatial computer, and many key developers haven't found a good reason to start developing apps for the platform either.

Apple taking its time to launch the Vision Pro globally also doesn't help, as only the American market has access to this device. Once it expands to more regions, it's possible that more people will be interested in spatial computing, developers will decide to create more apps, and upcoming visionOS updates will bring more quality-of-life features.

Until then, Vision Pro is shaping up to be one of Apple's worst product releases in years.

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