The launch of the Apple Watch has gotten off to a good start, with Apple seeing 1 million preorders in the US for its new smartwatch on Friday, according to the research company Slice Intelligence.
Customers will not actually be able to take home the Cupertino company's new device until April 24 at the earliest — but 957,000 Americans still paid up to be among the first to get their hands on the Apple Watch.
In comparison, just 720,000 Android Wear devices were sold throughout all of 2014.
Slice's data is based on a panel of 2 million online shoppers. As expected, 62% of buyers went for the low-end Apple Watch Sport model — but interestingly, customers ordered an average of 1.3 Watches each.
Of the Sport models, the black band was overwhelmingly the most popular. Sixty-four percent opted for black, with 22% getting white, 6% blue, and just 4% for green and pink. Looking at all bands, the black Sport strap made up 28% of orders, with the Milanese loop second at 25%, followed by the link bracelet at 14%.
Seventy-two percent of Apple Watch customers bought another Apple device over the past two years, which is to be expected. After all, the smartwatch loses almost all its functionality if not paired with an iPhone, so it is best suited for someone already plugged into the Apple ecosystem.
For reference, Apple sold 10 million devices on the launch weekend of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September 2014. But this isn't really a fair comparison, because the smartwatch market is still nowhere near maturity. A more accurate comparison is other smartwatch manufacturers — and here Apple excels.
Throughout all of 2014, only 720,000 Android Wear devices were shipped. This includes products from LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, and Samsung Electronics, according to PC World. Apple has managed to comfortably beat that figure in a single day.
