Why Does The $10,000 Apple Watch Edition Exist?

[PhilSynowiec]

When the Apple Watch was announced last year, the company decided to leave all of us guessing how much the Edition edition of the device would cost. Last week we saw the "Spring Forward" event, where Apple finally said the gold variant of its smartwatch would start at $10,000 and up. This left a lot of us wondering, who the hell is going to dish out that sort of cash for this thing?

According to Andreessen Horowitz analyst Benedict Evans, the Apple Watch Edition doesn't need too many customers at all. In a blog post Monday, Evans explains how the gold Apple Watch is simply a marketing ploy for the company to use for advertising, making the less-expensive variants more appealing.

Apple stores are huge rich-media billboards on every major shopping street in the developed world: I can’t think of any other company that has shops as big as that in such premium locations in as many places. Apple retail is a self-funding marketing operation. So too, perhaps, is the gold watch. Apple might only sell a few tens of thousands, but what impression does it create around the $1,000 watch, or the $350 watch? After all, the luxury goods market is full of companies whose most visible products are extremely expensive, but whose revenue really comes from makeup, perfume and accessories.

Smart move by Apple if that's what the company was aiming at. The Apple Watch, including the Apple Watch Edition, will start shipping April 24, starting at just $349 for the Apple Watch Sport.