- Pebble's second Kickstarter campaign finished a couple of days ago. It launched the new Time and Time Steel watches (colour e-paper display, long battery life, and the intriguing smart straps).
- The campaign achieved prepayments of $20m. It had a dozen tiers, from 1 Pebble Time for min $159, up to 30 Pebble Times for min 5k.
- Numbers: the breakdown suggests 59k Times and 37k Time Steels sold - ~96k total. However, those breakdown numbers undercount the the backers and pre-payments versus the headlines, so I've gone with the latter. 78k backers pre-paying $20.3m, average pre-payment per backer is $260 and the average selling price per watch is just over $210. More detail in a handy spreadsheet.
- The purpose of the campaign is as interesting as the numbers. Pebble's first Kickstarter collected $10m in 2012, and they raised venture of $15m in 2013 - this campaign wasn't needed to fund product discovery or manufacturing capability. Instead, this is Kickstarter as launch event and marketing channel. Perhaps also a demonstration of the Pebble's viability (or even M&A attractiveness) in the face of competition from Apple and Android Wear vendors Samsung, Sony et al.
- It's hard to project future sales. Last time: the Kickstarter in April 2012 had 69k backers for 85k watches, total $10.3m. And by Dec 2014, Pebble had added a watch model (the Steel) and sold 1m watches.
- What's different this time? Apple and Android Wear vendors are in the market, but the latter were already in the market for a fair bit of that 2012-14 period. Selling 95k watches in 30 days is an achievement for everyone except Apple. Is it fair to say they'll sell a million watches again with the Time models? I think it will be a harder ask.
- Expectations: Pebble to survive as small player in a clever watch niche (as distinct from wrist-computing). Or perhaps become an M&A prize to a consumer electronics mfr that wants a differentiator vs stock Android Wear.
- Update, 20 April: Apple is estimated to have sold 1-2.3m Watches on pre-order. See also here, Above Avalon and this detailed piece by Carl Howe. Apple Watch is several markets, the lowest-end of which may overlap with Pebble's.