15,000 HTC Vive headsets sold in ten minutes

HTC has revealed some very early sales data for its upcoming virtual reality headset the Vive.

The company has said that it sold over 15,000 units in just the first ten minutes after pre-orders went live yesterday. At the US RRP of $800, that’s $12m of revenue – $1.2m per minute.

Should all of those orders have been from the UK, that would have represented revenues of $14.3m (the unit costs 689 on this side of the pond).

Note, too, that UK shoppers face a mammoth postage bill of 57.60 for the device. 15,000 units shipped to the UK represents a tidy 864,000 for couriers.

That VR will enjoy a strong sales surge in its earliest days is very much to be expected. There’s a huge level of hype for the tech, which feels like it has been on the way forever. How sales of these units will pan out over the year ahead is very much another question.

Woah, more than 15k units in less than 10min 😮

— Shen Ye (@shen) February 29, 2016