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Apple Watch: factories making 6 million watches, as Apple Stores get a redesign

The shops are becoming more like a jewellery store, ready to sell the luxury watch for thousands of pounds

Andrew Griffin
Wednesday 18 February 2015 11:41 GMT
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Apple’s suppliers will make up to 6 million units of the new Apple Watch, and the company is refitting its iconic shops to help sell them.

The Taiwan-based company that will assemble the watch started making the watches earlier this year ahead of the April launch, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The lowest level Apple Watch, known as Sport, accounted for half of the order, according to the report. Most of the rest was for the mid-tier Apple Watch, with the luxury version expected to see a relatively small amount of orders initially, according to the report.

Apple will also refit its Apple Stores ready for the luxury watches, according to a report in the New Yorker. Apple’s head designer Jony Ive has been working with new retail chief Angela Ahrendts to make the shops more like a jewellery store to sell the most expensive watches, which are expected to cost thousands of pounds.

“I’m not going to buy a watch if I can’t stand on carpet,” Ive told the New Yorker that he had overheard one person saying. The shops will feature a design more like a VIP area.

In the extensive profile of Ive, the New Yorker writes: “These new spaces will surely become a more natural setting for vitrines filled with gold (and perhaps less welcoming, at least in some corners, to tourists and truants)”.

The shops are also set to be fitted with special safes to secure the expensive smart watches, according to earlier reports. The most expensive Apple Watches, known as Edition, will be made of 18-carat gold.

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