M.G. Siegler:

Last year, Rolex did $4.5 billion in sales. A solid year for the premium watchmaker. Of course, it was no Apple Watch. That business did roughly $6 billion in sales, if industry estimates are accurate.

The point here isn’t to compare the two devices — an Apple Watch is just about as comparable to a watch as an iPhone is to a phone. But it does provide an interesting context for Apple’s fledgling business — a new product category which has come under a lot of scrutiny since its launch a year ago. Many have called it a “flop,” which, again, is interesting in context.

Leaving aside the “…if industry estimates are accurate…” (they’re not), the media in general and the tech media is particular always seem to need to see everything in absolute terms. The Apple Watch is most certainly not a flop – nothing that sells millions of copies at $500+ a pop can be called that.