Apple Reportedly Slashes Vision Pro Shipments in Half

Following a report earlier this week that interest in the Vision Pro is waning, it looks like Apple is now scaling back significantly on the number of Vision Pro units it plans to ship this year.

While many early adopters enthusiastically embraced the Vision Pro when it launched in February — Apple reportedly sold nearly 200,000 units in the first two weeks of availability, and potential customers lined up for demos — the excitement for the new device dropped off sharply much sooner than expected.

Some reports suggested an unusually high return rate for the new headset, and although it wasn’t clear if returns were truly higher than normal, many of the folks who did bring it back complained of it being heavy, uncomfortable, cumbersome, and limited in the number of apps and content available.

The problem didn’t just extend to Vision Pro sales. Demand for in-store demos has also tanked, with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reporting earlier this week that few people are booking appointments to experience the headset, and many who do schedule demos don’t even bother showing up for them.

Apple seems to have noticed this dwindling enthusiasm and responded by ramping up the marketing push again while also tempering its expectations. In a post on Medium today, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo revealed that Apple has cut the number of Vision Pro shipments for 2024 in half:

Apple has cut its 2024 Vision Pro shipments to 400–450k units (vs. market consensus of 700–800k units or more).

What’s noteworthy is that this reduction comes on the cusp of a more global launch for the Vision Pro, which suggests that demand in the US has fallen off so sharply that Apple is far less confident about how well the headset will sell in other markets.

In some ways, that may not be particularly surprising for a $3,500 headset. It’s also important to remember that Kuo is an analyst who interprets trends and rarely has solid insight into what Apple executives are actually thinking.

For instance, Kuo said the “market consensus” was that Apple would ship between 700,000 and 800,000 Vision Pro headsets this year. Those numbers are coming from Apple’s supply chain, but the specific source is unclear, so it’s hard to tell whether Apple expected to sell 800,000 headsets or it was merely preparing suppliers for the possibility.

It’s also worth noting that the Financial Times reported last summer that Apple had already scaled back its plans to produce only 400,000 units throughout all of 2024, which was half of its original ambition. It seems odd that Apple would have doubled that number only to cut it in half again.

Along the same lines, Kuo now predicts that the Vision Pro’s poor performance has resulted in Apple possibly canceling its plans for a new model in 2025. The company instead expects that shipments of the current first-generation model will simply continue to decline.

The cynical way of reading this is that Apple is already giving up on the Vision Pro, or at least going back to the drawing board on what to do for a sequel. However, that’s not how Apple rolls, and we’ve already heard that it’s hard at work on a lighter second-generation model and even a more affordable one.

One of the biggest challenges with predictions from supply chain sources is that while analysts are often reasonably accurate about products and components, it’s hard to measure timelines. Reports of a Vision Pro successor arriving in 2025 came primarily from Kuo; Gurman has shared plans of what’s coming next but hasn’t said much about when we can expect it. Not getting a new Vision Pro in 2025 isn’t exactly bad news if Apple never planned to release a new one next year in the first place.

[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]