Apple had expected to sell 42 million first generation iWatches in the first year but could not actually shift more than 8 million.

Now it seems that Apple has placed orders for four million Apple Watches for the fourth quarter, targeting mainly demand from the year-end holidays. Apple originally planned to place orders for six million Apple Watches for the fourth quarter, but has reduced the volume since demand for the device is not as strong as expected.

Sales of Apple Watch will clear 10 million units by 2015 which is not bad, but nowhere near had the sales that the hype predicted.

With a plan to release a second-generation Apple Watch in 2016, Apple is currently talking to Inventec, Wistron and Foxconn Electronics to seek another manufacturer aside from Quanta Computer.

Apple's second-generation Apple Watch is expected to become available after the second quarter of 2016, the paper said.

The weak sales will have gutted Quanta which invested heavily in equipment for Apple Watch's manufacturing. It has admitted that its profit return from the device has been weaker than expected.

It will be even worse if Apple moves away from the firm for the second generation watch, still it is not the only company which has suffered from leaning on Jobs’ Mob too much.