Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today reiterated his belief that the Apple Vision Pro will launch in additional countries before Apple's annual developers conference WWDC in June. The headset first launched in the U.S. earlier this month.
Apple will likely expand the Vision Pro to more English-speaking countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the U.K., but it has also been localizing visionOS in preparation to launch the headset in countries like France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Kuo said demand for the Vision Pro in the U.S. has "slowed down significantly" since the headset launched there on February 2. He estimated that U.S. shipments of the headset will total 200,000 to 250,000 units this year, which he said is better than Apple's original estimate of 150,000 to 200,000 units, but it is still a "niche market."
In recent weeks, there was a lot of discussion about Vision Pro returns on social media. However, based on his inspection of the "repair/refurbishment production line" for the headset, Kuo estimated that the current return rate is "less than 1%."
All in all, Kuo said the Vision Pro launch in the U.S. played out mostly in line with his expectations, beyond a "higher-than-expected number of early adopters."
