Apple may only have 60,000 Vision Pro units available at launch

When Apple announced the Vision Pro headset on June 5 2023 it didn't say anything about availability beyond the fact that it would ship in early 2024. We're now there, and we now know that the headset will hit Apple Store shelves on February 2. But according to one report, we shouldn't expect that the headset will be easy to get hold of - and not just because you'll have to hand over a cool $3,499 to get it.

While the high asking price is sure to also limit the demand for a headset that we've been hearing rumors about for years, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims that even if you do have the money to give Apple, you might not be able to. According to him, stocks of the headset are going to be extremely limited.

Writing on X, the supply chain analyst said that Apple will produce between 60,000 and 80,000 units of the Vision Pro ahead of that February 2 release date. That leads him to believe that the headset will sell out soon after release, despite the high asking price.

Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen and Apple will never confirm how many units it had ready for the big day, but there are a couple of reasons that the low numbers could be accurate. The first is that Apple knows demand is going to be limited, at least at first, and it doesn't want to have inventory sitting on store shelves and left unsold. Not only is that a bad look for such a high-profile product launch, but it also means that the headsets will represent dead money for Apple - money that is better used on other things.

The other reason that Apple may have made a limited quantity of Vision Pro headsets is the sheer complication of building them. They're not cheap to build, but they also have some of the latest technology in there and that means that they are difficult to build. If Apple and its suppliers haven't been able to spin up production, we might find that there are few to go around come February 2.

Whatever the reason, it seems that despite costing more than most Macs, the Vision Pro headset could well be in short supply. With that in mind preordering might be the best route, and pre-orders will be accepted starting on January 19 at 5:00 a.m. Pacific Time. Those ordering will need to be in the United States and there is no solid information on an international launch just yet.