France Telecom announced Wednesday that Orange sold close to 30,000 iphones in France since its launch last week.
Apple's iPhone launched in France on November 29th.
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Actually the BBC is wrong on their article.
If you read news articles in French --- it only said that 80% of the people chose the "iphone specific" plans.
http://marches.lefigaro.fr/news/societes.html?&ID_NEWS=64306845
Notice that in France you can buy an iphone with a general Orange plan --- in which case the iphone costs 549 euro.
Only 1500 iphones are reported to be bought "contract free" --- that's 5% of the 30000 iphones sold.
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15666/1103/
@ Axl:
This could change somewhat if and when v.1.1.2 (OOB) falls to the hackers. Expect a significant sales spike in that case.
All the "reasonable" sales targets in the world are meaningless if potential customers don't agree with the vendor's idea of a bargain. 30,000 in the first week of sales represent the "low hanging fruit" and it's not very impressive. 100,000 by the end of the year is very unlikely. Expect less than 50,000 overall for France and expect similar disappointing (for Apple and their partners) figures from Germany and the UK.
Hi Guys, My first post on Mac Rumors and I really want an iPhone. Maybe someone could tell me how I go about buying one?
I can get a cheap flight from Dublin to France but I'm wondering can i walk into an Orange shop and purchase an unlocked iPhone with cash, jump back on my plane and use it in Ireland?
Thanks
And rethink they should.
We Europeans have got used to getting a phone for free and then deciding what provider gives us the right balance of what we want (mins, texts, mobile internet etc).
I think it's destined to fail in Europe mainly because most people simply won't pay £300 for a phone and then a £35/month contract. I know I won't. And that's where the problem lies- Apple don't have their own mobile network, so they must make their money through hardware sales. Apple simply can't compete with the other manufacturers and mobile networks and the deals they can offer, IMO.
I would LOVE an iPhone but I just can't justify the hardware and contract cost.
Apple is trying to break a similar hammer-lock owned by the providers in the mobile phone business, by insisting that they have more say, and get cut into the deal.
I'm not sure that's a bad thing overall, but it's bound to work better in the US than in Europe.
The trouble with that is the mobile phone companies will not give up any of their profit margin. All they will do is increase the cost of the monthly contract and make the consumer pay Apple's cut.
The big problem with this is if the "Apple Tax" makes the phone contract fee appear to be poor value for money. This seems to be the the case with O2's deals in the UK. Even taking the included data and wi-fi into account, they are overpriced. It's not surprising to hear the rumours that sales are disappointing.