Apple's Vision Pro estimated to have sold up to 180,000 units in its first three days

Apple's Vision Pro headset is now finally available for preorder after months and months of waiting. The headset was first announced in June of 2023 but with preorders now live the headset will finally go on sale on February 2. Those who order a headset today might have to wait until the middle of March for it to arrive, but those who ordered quickly will receive their headset on February 2. But how many headsets were sold? Given an expected limitation on the number of headsets that would be ready for launch day, one analyst believes that Apple was able to sell up to 180,000 headsets.

According to a report posted to the Medium website by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple likely sold between 160,000 and 180,000 during the first three days of the preorder window. And while Apple selling through its initial availability of the headset is perhaps not a surprise, Kuo suggests that there is still a concern to be noted here.

Writing in the same post, Kuo suggests that while delivery estimates ran anywhere to seven weeks pretty quickly, that estimated delivery window has not changed since. Whereas an iPhone preorder window normally sees these windows expand initially once stocks are exhausted and then continue to do so as more preorders rack up, that doesn't appear to have been the case here. Instead, the same delivery estimate remains in place today which might suggest that Apple has not been able to sell through all of the headsets it expects to be able to produce in a second wave of availability.

A relatively low demand for the Vision Pro headset wouldn't be at all surprising, however. The 256GB entry-level model costs $3,499 while buyers can choose to upgrade to the 512GB and 1TB models if they believe they need extra storage space. This is not an inexpensive device by any stretch of the imagination, and demand will always be tempered.

However, Apple is already thought to be working on making the Vision Pro cheaper and we can likely expect a cheaper model to arrive within the next couple of years. By then potential buyers will also have a better understanding of what the Vision Pro can bring to their lives - the fact that this is a new entry into the mixed reality market for Apple does mean that people don't necessarily know what to expect right now.

With the Vision Pro set to start being delivered on February 2, we can finally expect to hear how real people experienced the headset and how they feel about their new $3,499 purchase.