When
Tim Cook unveiled the Apple Watch in September,
the iPhone maker’s chief said it was the “most personal device we’ve ever
created”. On Monday the company will
show off the gold Apple Watch Edition in San Francisco. It will put a price tag of at least $10,000 and some models will also be Apple’s most expensive
products in more than 30 years.
The premium device will offer no
additional features or functions above those in the aluminium Apple Watch Sport,
which starts at just $350. Yet the
volume of 18-carat gold will make it Apple’s priciest gadget since the Lisa, a
$10,000 computer released in 1983, which took five years to develop and sold just 100,000 units - one
of the company’s rare flops.
Some analysts think the Apple Watch
Edition’s rich pricing will backfire.
“Apple is making the same mistake Louis
Vuitton made when it tried to hike prices of its luxury bags for upmarket customers
in China and Russia. We call this the ‘rich
people are dumb’ strategy. It is not
going to be successful for Apple. They’ll sell a couple in some places but it’s
not a sustainable strategy because rich people are not stupid: they start asking,
‘Why should we pay so much more?’” argues Christian Madsbjerg, co-founder of
ReD Associates.
One potential obstacle to success is
the rapid obsolescence of any technology.
People familiar with Apple’s plans say the next version of its
smartwatch is already in development, due for release next year. However, for
some high-end customers, the fact it will be obsolete in two or three years
merely adds to the ostentation of its purchase.
Some experts believe that Apple is
actually testing the depth of customers’ wallets as Apple researches an even
higher priced product: a car.
