Apple will soon be venturing into the wearable gadget market with their new smartwatch, joining competitors such as Samsung, Garmin and Sony. The three models that will be available include the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sport and a slightly pricier gold Apple Watch Edition. As you may or may not know, we are a bullion company, so you may be wondering why we are we talking about technology. Well, the real story here is that the company’s high-end luxury model, the Apple Watch Edition, which will come encased in 18-karat gold.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the company expects to produce 1 million units of this particular model (per month) in the second quarter of 2015. But the real question is, how much gold will be needed to produce so many units?
TidBITS (Apple news forum), assume that each Apple Watch Edition contains two troy ounces of gold. With that in mind:
‘If Apple makes 1 million Apple Watch Edition units every month, that equals 24 million troy ounces of gold used per year, or roughly 746 metric tons [or tonnes].
That’s enough gold to make even a Bond villain blush, but just how much is it? About 2,500 metric tons of gold are mined per year. If Apple uses 746 metric tons every year, we’re talking about 30 percent of the world’s annual gold production.’
At this point, the amount of gold is only speculative, but still, what effect could Apple have on the gold industry?