Could those early previews have prompted more customers to purchase the HomePods? It is possible because over in the UK, the shipping estimates for the HomePod have slipped. The UK is one of the first few countries to get the HomePod on the 9th of February, but Apple’s UK website is now listing the speakers as shipping on the 13th of February.
This seems to indicate that the initial batch that Apple had allocated had sold out, and now customers who were late to pre-order the speakers will have to wait a few more days. Of course this might not necessarily be an indication of how much in demand the speakers are, and that Apple might simply have started off with a small inventory.
Either way we’ll probably have to wait for the official release to get a better idea of how well they’ll do, especially in a market which seems to be dominated by the likes of Amazon and Google.