Apple is playing a shell game with watch sales

(MarketWatch) Apple says that it is attempting to hurt competitors by hiding the performance of its newest product, but the true victim could be Apple stock.

Apple released earnings Tuesday for the quarter that included the debut of the Apple Watch, the first new product category from the tech giant since the launch of the iPad. Apple shares AAPL, +0.36% declined sharply in after-hours trading despite results beating expectations for profit and revenue.

It is impossible to know how Apple’s smartwatch did in its first months of release from Tuesday’s report. As Apple had previously announced, the company gave no hard numbers on sales of the device, instead grouping those results with iPods, Apple TV and other devices.

The numbers that Apple did give suggested that the Watch underperformed analysts’ expectations. The “Other” category that includes the smartwatch grew by less than $1 billion, both sequentially and year-over-year, and analysts on average expected Apple to collect more than $1.8 billion from initial sales of Apple Watch, according to a FactSet survey. ...............(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-hurts-itself-by-hiding-apple-watch-sales-2015-07-21?dist=afterbell