Apple’s Vision Pro debacle: Company cuts production of $3,500 VR headset amid poor sales and customer complaints

They didn’t see this coming.

Apple is significantly reducing production of its initially popular Vision Pro headphones and may even stop producing the item by the end of the year, reports The Information.

The augmented reality device sold out of its pre-sale in January before customers found the expensive wearable technology clunky and headache-inducing after its February 2 launch.

Production of the product — with a retail price starting at $3,499 — is said to be down to 1,000 units per day, from close to 2,000.

Apple Insider reported that the company sold only about 370,000 headphones in the first three quarters of 2024 and predicts that only another 50,000 units will be sold by January.

With these numbers, manufacturer Luxshare is looking at around 200,000 excess units out of 500,000 to 600,000 total.

Part of Apple’s thought process is to have redundant units and headphone parts on hand for future demands.

CEO Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal last month that most consumers may not be ripe for Apple’s innovation.

“At $3,500, it’s not a mass-market product,” he said. “Right now, it’s an early adopter product. People who want to have tomorrow’s technology today – that’s what it’s for. Fortunately, there are enough people who are in that camp that it’s exciting.”Â

“Of course I would like to sell more,” added the boss. “But there is a limit to the number of faces this version of Vision Pro will be.”

Some users have complained that the Vision Pro has difficulty fitting onto their faces, while others say the device has caused headaches and neck pain.

Some have even said their headphones have given them black eyes.

Despite the seemingly lackluster sales, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X that Apple is still ready to give the product a successor.

Next year, Apple is supposed to produce a new headset with an improved processor; however, a cheaper model appears to be on hold until at least 2027.

“I think what really drove Apple to delay the cheaper Vision Pro is that simply lowering the price wouldn’t help create successful use cases,” Kuo wrote.

The Post has contacted Apple for comment.