The Apple Watch is surprisingly popular with holiday shoppers

The Apple Watch is “showing signs of life” heading into the holiday shopping season, according to channel-checks by FBR Capital Market’s analyst Daniel Ives. With Black Friday underway and a continued shopping fervor still ahead, Ives writes in a note to investors this morning that observations at various Apple store as well as Target and Best Buy show customer interest — and willingness to shell out at least $349 for the cheapest version of the watch — ramping up. Target even called out the Apple Watch as one of the three items that helped it achieve record-breaking online sales on Thanksgiving. This report follows many others indicating that Apple’s smartwatch wasn’t selling as well as Wall Street had hoped. Price and the newness-factor have reigned as two reasons for why people have chosen not to take the plunge. FBR analysts pegged total Apple Watch sales at roughly 6 million so far, while research firm Canalys estimated a slightly rosier 7 million earlier this month. But FBR sees the holiday season alone ringing in between 5 million and 6 million additional units sold.