Tim Cook says AirPods are ‘a runaway success,’ but that means...

Tim Cook says AirPods are ‘a runaway success,’ but that means nothing without numbers

by Jacob Kastrenakes Dec 28, 2016, 4:11pm EST
Tim Cook wandered into the New York Stock Exchange this morning and started taking questions about his holiday plans, product sales, and AirPods. His responses raised some big questions — Why isn’t he at NASDAQ, where AAPL is traded? Does he really think the NYSE will be a fun trip for his nephew? — but the biggest question he left unanswered is around the initial success of AirPods.

In response to a comment about the AirPods selling after their launch this month, Cook said that the product has been “a runaway success” and that Apple is “making them just as fast as we can” in order to meet demand.

By some measures, that appears to be true. Within a day of their December 13th launch, AirPods were shipping on a six-week delay that continues today. In-store pickup for AirPods units isn’t expected to be available again until mid-February.

But that’s all anecdotal, since the product’s availability is limited by how many units Apple was able to get off the assembly line before launch and how quickly it’s now able to make more of them. Cook’s comments don’t do much to elaborate on what we’re already seeing — they’re the kind of generically positive statement you’d expect him to make after any Apple product is released.


The reality is that we have no idea how well the AirPods are doing, and we’re unlikely to get firm info on them out of Apple anytime soon. Apple did not respond to a request for more details on the AirPods’ sales figures, nor on whether it would highlight the AirPods during its coming earnings releases.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/28/14101202/apple-airpods-runaway-success-tim-cook-no-sales-figures