The first chart below for the app download rankings in Aus shows a peak at Christmas followed by a sharp drop straight after. JB stock levels were very low around Christmas and early Jan so I expect the Christmas peak was dominated by watches bought before Christmas but brought out from under the tree and apps downloaded Christmas day and the few days following.The big dip in early Jan may have been influenced by critically low JB stock levels and fewer purchases just after Christmas. Downloads (and therefore sales)appear to steadily improve from then on after JB stores were restocked.
The average download ranking in the first two weeks of Feb was actually better than the average for Jan and the average for Nov and early Dec. That is very surprising with the price back up to RRP in Feb. The last 10 or so days are showing another dip in average ranking which is again coinciding with critically low stock levels in JB stores. It’s frustrating that they do this during their period of exclusivity. I’ll be glad to see that exclusive period end in one week from now. Having other large retailer/s or telco outlets should smooth out sales. I hope we see news on that front soon. While I expected seasonal factors to give us a dip in Feb, I’m very happy to see app downloads in Feb at similar levels to early Jan. We should see another rise in rankings (and sales) as soon as JB restocks again, or another large outlet comes on board.
Interestingly, when I look at the NZ charts (second and bottom), I don’t see any meaningful dip in Feb. That might suggest that the expected seasonal dip in Australia might not be due to seasonal factors after all. It may be fully due to JB stock levels being so low again as they were in early Jan.
If February is supposed to be weaker than Dec/Jan then both grossing charts below (third and bottom) are looking excellent.All this aside though, I still feel strongly that the sp will soon be driven much more by how strong the UK rollout will be - i.e. how many stores and what size the initial orders are (2,000 watches or 10,000watches?) and later the sp will be driven much more by how well the UK consumers take to the product more so than how Australian sales are tracking.That’s simply a function of population and therefore market size differences. A good uptake in UK will be especially important because it might be a guide to how well the watch will be received in other European markets. The sales growth story continues with Europe this year.