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O2's iPhone Discounts Spur Sales
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i hope they plan a really special occasion for the release, ya know the imacs birthday is coming up!
Its still too expensive.
£169 is almost $340.
There are almost no other phones available in any network store that will cost you that much money from the offset, plus you have to sign up with an 18month 'expensive' contract or Jailbreak it.
The iphone will NEVER hit mass market in the Uk with a start price that high. It may well be better than an N95 from Nokia... but they are now FREE on even low price contracts.
If the phone is jacked back up in price ro £269 in June, then I fear it will be the same again - hardly any buyers. 3G is nice... providing you get a free data plan to go with it. Knowing O2 they will stiff you for another £10 per month for a truly reasonable data usage plan once 3G arrives.
99% of people use their mobiles to simply make calls. The younger generation love photos and music. There are many many cheap phones which do all those things for FREE, and in some areas do them better than the iphone.
Apple needs to take a good look at the euro market before June... otherwise it will forever be known as iflop over here.
£169 is almost $340.
There are almost no other phones available in any network store that will cost you that much money from the offset, plus you have to sign up with an 18month 'expensive' contract or Jailbreak it.
The iphone will NEVER hit mass market in the Uk with a start price that high. It may well be better than an N95 from Nokia... but they are now FREE on even low price contracts.
If the phone is jacked back up in price ro £269 in June, then I fear it will be the same again - hardly any buyers. 3G is nice... providing you get a free data plan to go with it. Knowing O2 they will stiff you for another £10 per month for a truly reasonable data usage plan once 3G arrives.
99% of people use their mobiles to simply make calls. The younger generation love photos and music. There are many many cheap phones which do all those things for FREE, and in some areas do them better than the iphone.
Apple needs to take a good look at the euro market before June... otherwise it will forever be known as iflop over here.
i agree with the ones who say European iPhone needs photo,music etc... sharing with bluetooth, better camera with video(video can come with 2.0) and 3g. But my point is i don't want 3G because i don't have 3G in my country(Turkey) so the 169 price is absolutely amazing for me. And i will go to O2 in London on Saturday but when i heard that they sold out i just scared. Because i only have one shot since i don't live in UK, and that shot is depending on O2s stocks. What do you think? Will they have plenty of stocks until this Saturday?
"One or two" - not a surprise
The mobile phone market here in the UK, as others have noted, is markedly different to that in the US - one of the very few markets where we are more competitive & technically advanced. The two key points to note here are:
- as noted a thousand times, 3G phones have been out in the UK for a few years so a 2G phone (albeit a very nice one) was never going to set the heather on fire
- selling a couple of a particular model a day in a London mobile phone shop isn't a great surprise - there is a massive density of mobile phone shops here, hugely more than I saw in New York or Chicago recently, for example. My ex ran a number of phone stores and success or failure was definitely measured on very tight targets - 7 phones a day = disaster, 9 = OK, 12 = triumph, 15 = team night out. It's a very, very fluid market; personally I've averaged something like 1.5 different phones per year for the last 10 years. Can't remember the last time I kept a phone for a whole year.
All of which said, as an Apple fetishist for 4 years now I bought the iPhone the day after it came out in the UK, and it remains the finest piece of technology I've ever used. Couple of obvious gripes (3G & no task list - who the hell makes a smartphone without a task list???!!!) but it is massively better than the competition. I also have a WM5 Palm Treo from work so I'm reminded every day of just how surreal the level of performance difference actually is.
The mobile phone market here in the UK, as others have noted, is markedly different to that in the US - one of the very few markets where we are more competitive & technically advanced. The two key points to note here are:
- as noted a thousand times, 3G phones have been out in the UK for a few years so a 2G phone (albeit a very nice one) was never going to set the heather on fire
- selling a couple of a particular model a day in a London mobile phone shop isn't a great surprise - there is a massive density of mobile phone shops here, hugely more than I saw in New York or Chicago recently, for example. My ex ran a number of phone stores and success or failure was definitely measured on very tight targets - 7 phones a day = disaster, 9 = OK, 12 = triumph, 15 = team night out. It's a very, very fluid market; personally I've averaged something like 1.5 different phones per year for the last 10 years. Can't remember the last time I kept a phone for a whole year.
All of which said, as an Apple fetishist for 4 years now I bought the iPhone the day after it came out in the UK, and it remains the finest piece of technology I've ever used. Couple of obvious gripes (3G & no task list - who the hell makes a smartphone without a task list???!!!) but it is massively better than the competition. I also have a WM5 Palm Treo from work so I'm reminded every day of just how surreal the level of performance difference actually is.
3G iPhone
I agree with other posters here that Europe will be a better prospect for Apple once the 3G phone hits, we've had 3G networks for a while, there's other 3G phones out there, and we simply don't need a phone that works on an older network technology.
There is another concern though, that not only affects the iPhone, and that's WiFi. While having Wifi build in is fantastic, the fact that a lot of WiFi networks are not free spoils it, and there is no 'roaming' charge possible yet either, when I find myself on a T-mobile hotspot, while being a BT openzone customer for example, I need to pay both companies seperately. When traveling around , that is just not practical, so either these networks need to be free of charge (fat chance ), or enable some kind of roaming function, that no matter who you're with, all you need to do is just turn on your iPhone, iPod touch , laptop etc, and of you surf, not having to worry or deal with setting up yet another account....
Once WiFi is liberated from that constraint, it will take off and truly work for all of us.
I agree with other posters here that Europe will be a better prospect for Apple once the 3G phone hits, we've had 3G networks for a while, there's other 3G phones out there, and we simply don't need a phone that works on an older network technology.
There is another concern though, that not only affects the iPhone, and that's WiFi. While having Wifi build in is fantastic, the fact that a lot of WiFi networks are not free spoils it, and there is no 'roaming' charge possible yet either, when I find myself on a T-mobile hotspot, while being a BT openzone customer for example, I need to pay both companies seperately. When traveling around , that is just not practical, so either these networks need to be free of charge (fat chance ), or enable some kind of roaming function, that no matter who you're with, all you need to do is just turn on your iPhone, iPod touch , laptop etc, and of you surf, not having to worry or deal with setting up yet another account....
Once WiFi is liberated from that constraint, it will take off and truly work for all of us.
Absolutely agree with everything that has been said in this post. 3G, whilst an issue, was never a deal breaker in itself. The iPod touch price comparison is also a very good point especially as it's worth noting that 16GB iPhones still aren't selling well.
I expect this to be an initial demand surge which will quickly tail off once this tranche of demand has been met.
The funny thing is that i Paid £270 for an iPod Touch, but i refused to pay £270 for an iPhone. Now, if i got an incredible subsidy on the monthly payments, then i would have been more able to accept it. In the UK, its practically demanded that the phone is free on contract, or no more than £50, if we're going to be paying so much into the networks pocket.
The iPhone should be marketed as a Pre-Pay phone, which you can just dump any SIM you like in. That way you can either choose the benefits of a contract with the unlimited date etc, or just be a tight ass pre-pay user who always gets his mates to phone him.
Edit: I know that the iPhone can just be unlocked easily (i myself have done a few) but to the average consumer, they either dont know how to do that, or feel its far too risky (also the O2 employees get very rude when they even get a whiff that you might unlock the phone.)
The iPhone should be marketed as a Pre-Pay phone, which you can just dump any SIM you like in. That way you can either choose the benefits of a contract with the unlimited date etc, or just be a tight ass pre-pay user who always gets his mates to phone him.
Edit: I know that the iPhone can just be unlocked easily (i myself have done a few) but to the average consumer, they either dont know how to do that, or feel its far too risky (also the O2 employees get very rude when they even get a whiff that you might unlock the phone.)
650 CPW shops in the UK according to website, 2,200 in 11 countries.
Still, say average 15 a day, x 650 shops 9,750 per day, not bad going.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)
I agree. Price looks like it may have also been affecting it quite a bit as well. Compairing what they were selling it for in the US vs. Europe, there was a huge difference. Logically there would be some price differences due to the costs to ship to those countries but I don't think that it completely justified the price difference.
arn said:
I agree. Price looks like it may have also been affecting it quite a bit as well. Compairing what they were selling it for in the US vs. Europe, there was a huge difference. Logically there would be some price differences due to the costs to ship to those countries but I don't think that it completely justified the price difference.
The good thing is everyone on these boards know this fact. The people who are buying them now aren't on here.
...yet.
My current contract is coming up so an iphone is one of my options, but so is getting a phone and a PS3 for free on more or less the same tariff. Price is a huge problem, I don't expect to be paying over £150 for a phone, it's a much more attractive deal now but now you have the fear of an imminent upgrade and what you buy being out of date. May well go for the free PS3 and see how the iphone price is in a year
Well I'm buying one even though I know there's a 3G coming along soon. I sold my last US-bought 8GB model for 375 without even having to advertise it, even when the 3G is out the old 8GB models will easily fetch 300 here in Belgium (they're selling for 699 in some stores...)
Failing that I'm sure my wife would appreciate it
But the point isn't that the pricing is too high in Europe - HTC/QTEK models are more expensive even - the issue is that it's so cheap to buy in the USA for Europeans that we don't even consider buying here, we ask our friends visiting The States. For my first iPhone a friend in California bought it and posted, cost was 100 than buying one in UK. If the $ was stronger then more iPhones would sell in Europe.
Failing that I'm sure my wife would appreciate it
But the point isn't that the pricing is too high in Europe - HTC/QTEK models are more expensive even - the issue is that it's so cheap to buy in the USA for Europeans that we don't even consider buying here, we ask our friends visiting The States. For my first iPhone a friend in California bought it and posted, cost was 100 than buying one in UK. If the $ was stronger then more iPhones would sell in Europe.
Most new sales are going to those buying them on the cheap, unlocking and selling them. Either eBay or just bulk to other countries that dont have the iPhone yet. O2 employees are even telling buyers, where other O2 stores are, so they can stock up.
Yep, price was always the problem.
Frankly, if the iPhone is ever going to be a mega success in the UK it needs to be free on the £45 tarriff, and no more than £50 on the £35 per month.
The phone should retail unlocked for about £270 (given the Touch Apple must make money on that), and on a £35 - £45 a month tarriff people expect £250 + worth of subsidy towards handset costs.
(of course, given that people should be signing the legally binding contracts before they take the phone out of the shop...)
Phazer
Frankly, if the iPhone is ever going to be a mega success in the UK it needs to be free on the £45 tarriff, and no more than £50 on the £35 per month.
The phone should retail unlocked for about £270 (given the Touch Apple must make money on that), and on a £35 - £45 a month tarriff people expect £250 + worth of subsidy towards handset costs.
(of course, given that people should be signing the legally binding contracts before they take the phone out of the shop...)
Phazer
*Breaking News*
*BREAKING NEWS*
I just heard from a very reliable source that the 3G iPhone WILL be released sometime in the next few months.
...take it to the bank!
*BREAKING NEWS*
I just heard from a very reliable source that the 3G iPhone WILL be released sometime in the next few months.
...take it to the bank!
It's very interesting that the WWDC is in early June and that the iPhone originally was available on June 29, 2007. This allows Steve time to release the new iPhone (hopefully day of his Keynote) which will generate big sales for the next 2.5 weeks to, hopefully, keep him on his one-year projection.
I believe that an overall price reduction on Edge versions along with v.2 of the software will help stimulate growth in even the Edge versions, however, I wouldn't be surprise to see a video camera or bigger HD or both on those as well.
Also, domino effect is sure to come into play here... once Johnny comes into the office just after he is able to download a dozen or more primo software packages from the software store, people at the office are going to say "I didn't the iPhone would do that"... boom... sales.
With all that I must add, Steve said, I believe, was "Our GOAL is garner 1% of the market (or 10M phones sold)" -- GOAL, people. I can't believe so many around the 'net say that Apple's stock will fall if they don't meet the 10M number. Of course, they're probably right because people are generally lemmings, especially in the stock market.
Couldn't agree more.
A lot of domestic speculators only considered the iphone's simplicity of use and disregarded all the other externalities that impact sales. Apple's approach was dead in the water before they even started. The high unsubsidized handset cost, coupled with the carriers' exhorbitant fees (in order to recoup profit sharing losses) was doomed in a market where users are accustomed to free N95's and PAYG. It makes me wonder if it was pure arrogance or bad market research prior to launch
They missed a golden opportunity with europeans having strong economy and a thirst for mobile phones. Oddly the many that said it would be a huge success are no where to be found.
Maybe, the problem is people have been doing that with S60 for years so it's not a new thing.
Not really, if you make public statements on sales targets then the city will hold you accountable for them.
I paid £133 for a brand new 8GB 1.1.4 unlocked iPhone from Ebay and let me tell you why. I had a 3G 5MP LG Viewty which I paid £0 for when I got it as an upgrade on T-Mobile. I sold it for £187 and paid £320 for an iPhone from a reputable seller. Logically that works out at £133 out of my own pocket which is by far a good deal. I pay £21.25 a month for £180 credit and unlimited data on T-Mobile. I refuse to pay the ridiculous prices O2 charge and be tied to a 18 month contract.
Exactly. IMHO, many peoples over there haven't paid for a cellphone in quite a while. I mean, they're almost paying you to use their phone (with a 1 year contract, in France). I agree that they don't have all the fancy-touchy-sexy feels but still. If you want to make it an upstream gadget, better:
a) lower the price or/and
b) put way more functions into the phone, at least make it 3G. Who cares about battery life
We've all learned from iPods that you wont use it more than 2 years anyway. The reason is greed. Apple tries to get too much profit from the iPhone. Now they start to put themselves into a corner. Should they start to sell unlocked phones in some countries? But still keep their current profit margin (very high)? Then the unlocked ones must be sold for a really high price. And make them only work in that country to not piss off carriers in other countries selling locked ones? Make the warranty valid only if you are in that country? But if it is too high priced, no one will buy it anyways?
Yeah, well... if they just released an unlocked phone, no contract needed, in all countries they sell iPods in... with a more "normal" 25 % profit margin per phone or so, things would be okay... they would get enough money. People would buy it, and continue to buy loads of it because the phone is actually so nice and cool.
But it is greed. They want loads of money. They want control, they want to expand, they want world domination? Oh wait, that's what all companies want in the end.
More Carriers
Apple would have sold a lot more in the UK, if they hadn't restricted themselves to O2. Not only that, it should have been 3G from day one. Oh, and a higher MP camera would have helped.
I know of several people who would buy an iPhone, if only if it wasn't O2 ( unfortunately, not everyone wants to unlock it ).
Hopefully, the new model ( and the rumour that it will be available to multiple carriers in Italy ) will signal the end of the exclusive deals.
Apple would have sold a lot more in the UK, if they hadn't restricted themselves to O2. Not only that, it should have been 3G from day one. Oh, and a higher MP camera would have helped.
I know of several people who would buy an iPhone, if only if it wasn't O2 ( unfortunately, not everyone wants to unlock it ).
Hopefully, the new model ( and the rumour that it will be available to multiple carriers in Italy ) will signal the end of the exclusive deals.