Courtesy of Benzinga.
The clock is ticking for Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) long-awaited smart watch.
Rumors claim that it could arrive in September 2014, but investors shouldn’t forget that Apple was also expected to release a wearable device last September.
Unfortunately, it might be too late for Apple to enter the market.
“If Apple comes up with an iWatch in September or later, as good as it may be, it will be total failure because in the consumer space the winner takes it all, and Google and its ecosystem are way ahead,” Trip Chowdhry, Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, told Benzinga.
Related: What if Apple’s iWatch is Really a TV?
“Apple doesn’t even have an available SDK for developers to write any applications. It’s not even expected for Apple to talk about any SDK at the Worldwide Developers Conference, which is happening in the first [week] of June.”
Chowdhry previously argued that new products — such as the iWatch or a new television set — could increase shareholder value. He is now afraid that Apple will take too long to make a difference.
iWatch hype has been heating up for more than a year, thanks in part to the many surveys indicating that consumers are eager to buy the device.
The biggest news came when Bloomberg reported that as many as 100 product designers had been assigned to work on the project. That report has yet to be confirmed, but there have been several additional reports claiming that Apple wants to enter the wearable computing space.
Apple CEO Tim Cook fueled those rumors last spring at the final AllThingsD conference.
“I think the wrist is interesting,” said Cook, as quoted by AllThingsD. “The wrist is natural.”
When ChangeWave Research surveyed consumers last year, the company found that five percent were very likely to buy an iWatch.
In May 2013, one watch industry expert told Benzinga that Apple could cause a serious problem for Swatch and other manufacturers of digital watches.
Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.
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