Apple says that it is attempting to hurt competitors by hiding the performance of its newest product, but the true victim could be Apple stock.

Apple released earnings Tuesday for the quarter that included the debut of the Apple Watch, the first new product category from the tech giant since the launch of the iPad. Apple shares AAPL, +3.03% declined sharply in after-hours trading despite results beating expectations for profit and revenue.

It is impossible to know how Apple’s smartwatch did in its first months of release from Tuesday’s report. As Apple had previously announced, the company gave no hard numbers on sales of the device, instead grouping those results with iPods, Apple TV and other devices.

The numbers that Apple did give suggested that the Watch underperformed analysts’ expectations. The “Other” category that includes the smartwatch grew by less than $1 billion, both sequentially and year-over-year, and analysts on average expected Apple to collect more than $1.8 billion from initial sales of Apple Watch, according to a FactSet survey.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote that those numbers equaled sales of about 1.2 million devices, far lower than his 3 million projection and the consensus expectation of 4 million.

“We believe the number may fuel investor concerns about the near- and long-term wearable opportunity,” Munster wrote.

Apple Watch sales are not going to make or break Apple’s financial performance in the short term. The world’s most valuable company is primarily reliant on the iPhone: Apple posted iPhone sales totaling $31.37 billion in the quarter, more than 63% of its $49.6 billion total.

Tech investors concerned about future growth are looking for something besides the iPhone to drive sales, however, and they won’t know for sure if the Apple Watch is that product unless Apple begins to share more information about its performance.

“They have to answer the question: Is this a legitimate product category for Apple in the coming year?” FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives said in a telephone interview Tuesday evening. “There’s a bit of a black cloud around this Watch situation until they give a unit number.”

Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri attempted to head off the thought that the change in the “Other” category would accurately reflect Watch sales, telling the Associated Press in an interview ahead of the results that Watch sales were “well over” the $952 million difference from the previous quarter and exceeded internal expectations.

Chief Executive Tim Cook reiterated those comments in Tuesday’s conference call, and seemed to dispute third-party reports that sales declined during the quarter, saying that sales in June were higher than in April or May.

Cook also said that “our objective for the quarter wasn’t primarily sales,” and that Apple was looking to perfect its sales strategy ahead of what it hopes will be big holiday sales of the smartwatch.

Both executives said Apple’s vagueness on Apple Watch sales was an attempt to keep secrets away from other tech companies looking to score in the wearables category.

“We don’t intend to provide insight that could help our competitors,” Maestri said in the call.

However, Apple gave plenty of information about iPhone, Mac and iPad sales, despite heavy competition in the smartphone, personal-computer and tablet markets, respectively. When asked for more information on the competitive Watch insights such information would reveal, an Apple spokeswoman declined to go into more detail.

Ives believes Apple won’t wait long to start providing the information, especially as more and more analysts attempt to discern sales on their own from the information Apple does provide.

“In two or three quarters, they’ll be giving the Watch number,” the analyst predicted.