Apple Watch sales remain a mystery as Apple shares plummet following weak forecast

Apple CFO Luca Maestri claims that Apple Watches have outsold first ever iPad and iPhone launches in similar time period

Apple's shares plummeted by nearly seven per cent with investors seemingly unhappy that its fourth-quarter revenue forecast would miss estimates, while there was mystery surrounding Apple Watch sales figures, which the Cupertino, California-based firm refused to reveal.

Apple executives claimed during a conference call following the results that releasing the Apple Watch numbers would help its competitors.

The firm's CFO, Luca Maestri, did reveal to Bloomberg in an interview that there had been more sales of Apple Watches than there had been following the launches of the first ever iPhone and iPad.

"We looked back at similar periods for iPhone and iPad when they were originally launched, and we've actually sold more Apple Watches than we sold iPhone and iPad at the time," Maestri said.

"We feel very good about the start and what we feel particularly happy about is, frankly, the customer response, the feedback we're getting," he added.

According to previous reports, Apple had sold one million iPhones in the first 74 days after sales began in 2007, while it had sold two million iPads in the first 60 days of its launch in 2010. The Apple Watch has been on sale for about 64 days - meaning that Apple would have sold over two million of its smartwatch device in that time.

The firm has put its Watch business into its "other" category, which includes products like iPods. Apple reported $2.6bn in revenue for the category, and Maestri told The Associated Press that Apple Watch revenue was responsible for more than the $925m increase that Apple saw in the category, as it made up for other products' sales falling.

In other sales, Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones in the third quarter, up by more than a third (35 per cent) from a year ago, making a net revenue of $31.4bn. But analysts had expected Apple to sell around 49 million smartphones. The company's sales in China were particularly impressive, doubling to $13.23bn from a year earlier.

The company said net income rose to $10.68bn from $7.75bn a year earlier, while revenues rose by about a third to $49.61bn year on year.