Apple Watch: customers told not to worry about huge wait times as Apple thought to ramp up production of smartwatch

An estimated 1 million watches were sold on the first day, making many versions unavailable within hours and leading to months of wait for deliveries

Apple CEO Tim Cook points at an Apple Watch at an Apple Store on April 10, 2015 in Palo Alto, California. The pre-orders of the highly-anticipated wearable from the tech giant begin today as the watches arrive at stores for customers to preview. (Getty Images)

Customers that have been told to wait months for the arrival of their pre-ordered Apple Watch could be in for a pleasant surprise. The company is likely to ship the smartwatches far earlier than estimates, some of which indicate that they won’t be delivered until August.

The company has announced such long shipping estimates in part to avoid people getting disappointed, according to Apple blog Mac Rumors.

Avoiding disappointment might also have been part of Apple’s reason for only allowing Watch orders online, a move that stops people arriving at Apple Stores to find all the stock has already sold out. But one Apple fan who spoke with Apple said that the company was concerned that people would not have heard that news and would instead turn up on the April 24 launch day with the expectation of being able to buy a watch.

The long waits mirror similar estimates that were released for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. But those products too were shipped much more quickly than those estimates suggested.

The company was estimated this week to have sold more than 1 million smartwatches on the first day of pre-orders, on Friday. Most versions of the Watch were sold out within hours.

Apple is also likely ramping up production to respond to the demand, according to some analysts.