Last week Apple blogger John Gruber shared his predictions on what the Apple Watch would cost: $1,000 for the steel Apple Watch and around $10,000 for the 18k gold Apple Watch Edition.
In a post talking about when the iPad was rumoured to start at $1,000, Gruber added a follow up to his price predictions:
From what I’m hearing, I guessed pretty good last week: about $1,000 for Apple Watch, and $10,000+ for Edition. (I’m still thinking $749 starting price for the steel Apple Watch with Sport Band — roughly twice the price of the aluminum Sport model.)
Gruber is known to have reliable sources (or little birdies as he calls them) close to Apple so start saving up for that 18K model in rose gold.
Over at The Loop, Dark Mark suggests if a price/cost ratio of 3.44 (same as the iPhone 6) is applied to the Apple Watch Edition, we could see the following prices:
There’s no traditional model to draw from, as the Apple Watch is a brand new kind of animal, but my instinct is that the cost to Apple will be between $1,000 and $2,000. Multiply those numbers by a price/cost ratio of 3.44 and you end up with a nicely marked up price of $3,400 to $6,800.
Mark says his instinct says the Apple Watch would be “more aligned with Tag Heuer than with Rolex.”
Either way, the upper tier Apple Watch models are going to be luxury products, marketed as high-end fashion accessories, as we’ve previously seen in their U.S. and Chinese magazine cover debuts. The Apple Watch is set to start shipping in April and will start at $349 USD for the Sport model.
