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San Francisco - About 40% of adult Apple iPhone owners in the US are interested in buying the company's new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The high-tech smart watch, which will range in price from $350 to $17 000 for an 18-karat gold model, is Apple's first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors.
Owners of the iPhone are a particularly important market for Apple as it launches the new watch, which goes on sale on April 24. Because the watch needs an iPhone to work fully, analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets.
BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said that with more than 100 million active iPhone users in the US and closer to half a billion globally, the survey was "pretty encouraging" for a product that has not been seen in shops, even if was unclear how much of the interest would translate into purchases.
Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andrew Hargreaves said it was not clear how many people wanted or needed a smart watch. But he expected Apple's cache and marketing might to deliver strong initial sales of the Apple Watch.
Wearable tech
"Winning Apple customers is more realistic at this point," said Hargreaves.
The watch allows users to check email, listen to music and make phone calls.
Ipsos surveyed 2 469 Americans aged 18 and older online between March 9 and March 17 and found that 24% expressed an interest in purchasing the Apple Watch, including 10% of those describing themselves as "very interested".
The data was weighted to reflect the US population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
Among the iPhone owners, 39% were interested in purchasing the Apple Watch, including 17% describing themselves as very interested. There were 788 iPhone owners in the survey with a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Apple is among several large tech companies looking to jumpstart a new market for "wearable" electronic devices. Samsung Electronics, Sony and LG Electronics have all released their own smart watches, many of them powered by software developed by internet giant Google.
More than half of iPhone users in the Reuters/Ipsos survey believe that a smart watch in the near future will be an essential gadget that's as common as the smartphone, whereas 44% a broader poll of US adults felt that way.
