France's Orange may be next to cut iPhone price, eat losses - reports - Page 3

Smarmy and supercilious? Me? Try this small sampling from the thread (trust me, I am only cutting-and-pasting):
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"And I bet you just luv AT&Fee"

"Do you plan on having children?" (I'll bet you'll pretend you don't recognize that one).

"The only morons are those who insists on exclusiveness of a hand-built European luxury car --- when robots in Japan can build a car that will have much better quality than any humans can."

"Here's an idea. Try getting a life."
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Do you want me to go on?

Dream on

Whatever dude... Do you think anyone is going to line up for the 3g iPhone? Doubt it. You got sucked in by the hype buddy - No one believes the hype this time round.

I think a big factor behind the iPhone's flop in Europe is that people actually read newspapers there and they heard what Jobs was doing to the carriers with the whole revenue sharing hoo haa. The chutzpah of that guy is unbelievable. I would never buy an iPhone, mainly for that very reason - Apple has to learn some respect. If I think a company is a pack of wankers, then I am not going to buy their product am I? I couldn't give a rats arse how good the product is. (by the way, I dont think they are a patch on Nokias)

So much for a game changing phone. Yes, Nokia is producing a touch screen phone, thats about the only big thing to have come out of this. Is Symbian still powering Nokia Phones. Yes it is. Have phone manufacturers rushed headlong into producing touch screen phones? Not really. Nothing much has changed with the major manufacturers. The iPhone just doesn't sell that well, for business use it is a fundamentally flawed device. Major companies still use the Blackberry for everything.

Oh boy. Another one with time one his hands that supposedly has no interest in the iPhone! These guys keep proving my point... (and, Jules, in case you're wondering what I am referring to, check out #78 above).

You are playing pretty fast and loose with the facts to prove this point. You highlight certain facts and completely ignore others that don’t support your assertion.


AT&T never officially released its Christmas iPhone sales. Its subscriber base increased by 2.7 million for a record breaking single quarter increase.


The number of unlocked iPhones are only an estimate. And that estimate was only for a quarter not half.


AT&T has nearly 10 million more subscribers than Verizon.


This is just completely wrong.


This is nothing new. People have been carrying two phones long before the iPhone existed. Most of the time its because one is a business phone and the other is a personal phone. These people have little choice in their business phone. But they can choose their personal phone.

The other way to look at this is that there is such demand for the iPhone people are willing to carry two smartphones.


Verizon gives the Voyager away with a cheaper contract. Of course its going to sell more units. That’s simple economics.


You cannot compare the N95 and the iPhone in this way. The business models and sales prices are completely different.

The N95 is sold on nearly every carrier in every industrialized nation. Its given away free with a cheaper contract. The N95 should sell more than the iPhone. This proves nothing.

This is chock full of inaccuracies.

The iPhone is not a flop in Europe. The iPhone has generated over a billion euros in sales in a few months time. In case you didn't know its difficult to make a billion euros from a product.

Apple's revenue sharing isn't entirely different from how most phones are sold. Apple takes payments over time instead of one payment as most phone manufacturers do.

You really have not been paying attention. Every mobile phone manufacturer is making touch screen phones. There are more now than their have ever been. The internal storage of phones is also increasing.

All you've got to do is take a look at:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/07/h...ge-nokias-n95/

and your statement is more true than you could possibly imagine.

The N95 sounds like a complete disaster!

France sells what was it... 850 a day. Now if that was say the Shetland Islands or Fiji, I would say its selling fairly well. But this is a country of 60000000 people. 850 60000000 850 60000000. Now I'm no market analyst, but I can spot a disaster when I see one. And thats a disaster. This is a consumer product, not an A380.

And for your information Apples revenue sharing IS entirely different from the way every other mobile is sold. Apple tales a share of the what the company takes in. If you dont believe its different, explain why no Chinese operator will deal with Apple. "We dont share revenue. Period" Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman said. Now if that doesn't imply to you that the model is different, what does?

Oh and more memory being added to phones is an Apple thing? wa?

Well what do you want then - A great big Apple love party?

The people I had debates with last year about the chances of the iPhone in Europe, where are you all now? I don't suppose there is any chance you will be joining this thread to admit how wrong you were?

Nah! didn't think so, that seems to be the trouble with many of the regulars on here, they will swear blind that Steve Jobs can walk on water and when his feet get a little wet they close their eyes, cover their ears and go "nah nah nah nah nah nah, we never saw that!".

The iPhone v1 was never going to set the world alight in Europe, lack of 3G and MMS was huge but the cost and the deals with carriers was always going to put it on a back foot against the likes of Nokia.

I worked in the UK mobile industry for years and wrote many many posts on this subject, posts that were based on years of experience of this market. But of course some spotty American kid with a 3 year old imac knows better! That has always been the problem with this site.

Nice to be right though! ;-)

What exactly are you basing this on?

What other phone in France is offered on one carrier, at a premium price, on a premium contract, and far outsells the iPhone? At the current costs Apple may have not expected to sell much more than 850 a day.

The problem with this is that it uses one narrow measurement to determine success or failure. In real life business does not work that way. Dell sells 10 times more computers than Apple. While Apple is far more profitable and is growing faster. Just because you sell more does not mean your business is profitable or viable.

The iPhone could be selling 2 million units a quarter while Nokia is selling 50 million smartphones a quarter. The iPhone could be making as much profit for Apple as Nokia's entire smartphone lines combined. Apple is at the beginning of building the iPhone platform and has plenty of time.


Every mobile carrier that subsidizes phones for contract buys the phone from the manufacturer. The money they pay to the manufacturer is an expense that comes out of their profits. Instead of taking one payment Apple is taking payments over 24 months. Its basically the same either way.

Yes we are hearing that China Mobile is hesitant to deal with the iPhone because of the revenue sharing. At the same time both parties acknowledge that negotiations have not even begun. Apple could certainly propose do it the other way and have China Mobile pay the equivalent of 24 months of revenue in one payment up front.

I think its early to say for sure. Sony/Ericson has had a slide in sales.

Much of these sales numbers are played for sensationalism. But divorce the actual profitability of each business model. Apple has certainly made a lot of money from European iPhone sales. O2 has been happy and reported healthy profits from its iPhone sales. Ultimately that is what matters most.

This whole thing smacks of the 3g, slimmer iPhone that has been rumored.
The iPhone is not a failure by any stretch of the imagination.

People really don't have to line up overnight, but they will sell like hotcakes.
I know someone who is buying 4 for their family when they come out.

Look at the big picture, they are slyly trying to clear the channels.

I'm amused that they slap an enormous price on it and then wonder why it doesn't sell well.

Sure someone can say "this amount of people bought it at this price and we made a profit so it must not be too expensive" but I'm just not convinced the price is hitting the right spot on the supply/demand graph.

I hope Apple take the message on board and aren't banking solely on 3G making all the issues go away. I'm confident they'll work something out.

You have proven consistently that you can't break anything to anyone unless you consider how exponentially stupid you seem to get with post after post. Your record for ignorance in jeopardy by you and you alone. It is not my Nokia surprise but that of Nokia's. Wait, you just broke your own record again.


The N82 released a black version that was only avail in the US. Once again you have a problem knowing what is released and what isn't. Make the Internet your best friend and stop guessing. Also get a spec sheet and compare the N82 features to the iPhone and see what's missing. One word: DOH!!!!!


I guess circus clown is still entertainment. Try sending a file from your iPhone. Ohhhh, that's right, you can't. How about making a VoIP call. Ooooppssss.... You can't.


Well, you broke your record again. You made an assumption. I own nothing but Macs, however I have had the pleasure of having truly high end, unlocked phones where I can install what I want to suit my needs. If you had read on instead of jumping in hip deep in crap, you would have seen that I mentioned having an iPhone. It must really suck being you?

I wrote the basement comment and it still stands. I like the iPhone for what it does. Play media well. As a phone, it is pretty terrible unless you want to simply call, or send one SMS at a time to individuals. It is woefully underwhelming as a phone. Apple could have done better. They should have hired some Nokia or SE guys to give them a hand in developing a phone rather than developing an iPod then sticking in a phone.


I hate the word "fanboy" but it applies to you. Anyone that does not sing the praises of Apple and "he who must not be named" a.k.a Steve Jobs (oppsss. named him), is immediately a hater or basher or Windows lover. You and those of your ilk tend to live in a Apple shaped, myopic world where all is wonderful. The real world is not like this. If I pay money for a product, I feel I have the right to criticize it.


I work for the State Department, so you don't have to worry about my job.



You sound under informed.

Yeah and Apple's going to be making a pile of cash on that one. Apple are in the business of seeling phones and making money. 1) They are selling bugger all phones and 2) They wont be making any money out of it.


The problem with this is that it uses one narrow measurement to determine success or failure. In real life business does not work that way. Dell sells 10 times more computers than Apple. While Apple is far more profitable and is growing faster. Just because you sell more does not mean your business is profitable or viable.

The iPhone could be selling 2 million units a quarter while Nokia is selling 50 million smartphones a quarter. The iPhone could be making as much profit for Apple as Nokia's entire smartphone lines combined. Apple is at the beginning of building the iPhone platform and has plenty of time.


I'll bet you an A380 that they change their business model sometime very soon. So much for niche products that make them loads of cash - they are dumping stock in Germany. 99 Euros gets you an iPhone these days.


I wont bother with this one sorry. Try doing a bit more reading. Preferrably wiith both eyes open. But at least one.

I'll bet you an A380 that they change their business model sometime very soon. So much for niche products that make them loads of cash - they are dumping stock in Germany. 99 Euros gets you an iPhone these days.



I wont bother with this one sorry. Try doing a bit more reading. Preferrably wiith both eyes open. But at least one.[/QUOTE]


Nice one Jules. As an American currently living in Europe, then on to somewhere else, I can say that many to most Americans need to get a passport and get out of the country and realize that abroad is not actually Canada or Mexico. This debate on the iPhone is proof positive of this. Apple thought they could bring that old and out dated model to Europe and people would fall for it. It was tried with branding and that died. People buy the phones and unbrand them as fast as they can get their phone recognized by their PC or Mac. Finland told Apple to go shove the iPhone. The operators here laughed at the 3 year old technology that was being pawned off as innovating and revolutionary. Touch screens how been around for quite a while, so to the European masses, the iPhone was nothing new. Now, the iPod Touch was something different. I would like to see the sales numbers for these.

You have a point there. Before anyone says I am an Apple basher I own two Macs and an iPod Touch. I love that gadget. The sound only comes out of one channel most of the time and Apple refuses to honor any warranty here in the Ukraine, which pisses me off, but the iPod Touch is very much in a class of its own. Sure, it's similar to the iPhone but its where Apple bascially got everything completely right the first time round. And there's no revenue sharing model to deal with

And I'm a Kiwi living in the Ukraine... beat that...

You might have me beat. I am an american living in Finland at the moment.

Dude - you have no point other than expressing your own self-righteousness in owning an iPhone. You've contributed absolutely ziltch to this thread and are one of the ones on here previously that kept driving your ridiculous point that the French and Europeans plan their vacations to America in order to buy iPhones. This whole thread is about how the French and Europeans have no interest in the iPhone. So sorry you can't accept the story of the thread.

And is at the bottom of the barrel in ratings for customer service and signal. More does not necessarily mean better.

I love it- anyone who states anything other than glowing descriptive about the iPhone has according to you- too much time on their hands. Yet you can cut and paste from not only this thread but dig up quotes from all the other threads endlessly.

AT&T is not in the business of selling cell phones --- they are in the business of selling cell phone services. Out of 2.7 million net adds, AT&T had 1.2 million retail postpaid net adds, 750K retail prepaid net adds and 750K wholesale MVNO prepaid net adds (Tracfone). Out of the 900K iphone activations in the quarter, 40% came from new subscribers --- which means 13.3% of the 2.7 million net adds came from the iphone.

Out of 2 million net adds, Verizon Wireless had 1.6 million retail postpaid net adds, 300K retail prepaid net adds and 100K wholesale MVNO prepaid net adds (GM OnStar, Helio).

In terms of retail subscriber base --- Verizon Wireless has more subscribers than AT&T. AT&T only beats Verizon in total number --- because of Tracfone's 9.5 million subscribers.

Tracfone saved AT&T's ass in the last 2 years --- nothing to do with the iphone.

350K units in Europe x $450 = $160 million.

Why not? Sounds like fun!

Get a grip, man.

Before hurling epithets, why don't you take a fleeting look at the history of my posts, just the blurbs that appear as headlines and inform yourself..... nah, you are too busy wasting your time venting about things you don't like/own.

Oh, I do have time on my hand for defending things I like and own, and work for me.

If you spent more tie reading post then following the crowd you would see that i do own the products I criticize. I happen to live in the real world and not Steve Jobs pants. The points I made about the iPhone came from the very article that started this thread and from various news sources, sooooooo until you begin to have a clue what you are talking about, Foxtrot Oscar.

Okay Apple got desperate and dropped the price, just tell us how much Voyageurs have been sold, so far we know Apple has sold 4 million iphones.

Sure do.

So you show an article showing Nokia missing it's targets, seeing a global slowdown, and their stock getting hit. Again how many Voyaguers have been sold to date, 1.1 million, so they haven't sold more than Apple.

Of course, the iphone sales is higher.

But that's not the main point. The main point is that other carriers will see that Verizon has done ZERO advertising blitz, had not lowered monthly plan prices, gets to keep 100% of the revenue --- and the iphone activation is only slightly higher by a hair.

So now American's don't read newspapers ?

So you mean no phone is perfect, not even the N95, who would have thought.

Nicely said, look at Dell, they sell more computers than Apple but yet they are cutting jobs.

So Verizon is not "kicking" AT&T like was said earlier on.

Last time I checked 4 million and 1.1 million are not even remotely close. iphone is also the most used phone for browsing the internet in the States and 2nd in the world despite with only 4 million units out there. Was the Voyaguer even a blip on the radar in terms of internet usage, iphone is leading in consumer satisfactory, we love our iphones, amd it shows in all the studies being released, consumers are using their iphones to watch media, listen to songs, than any other phone, anyways you slice it, the iphone is a game changer.

Yeah exactly... the title of this thread was "France's Orange may be next to cut iPhone price, eat losses - reports" Good starter for a bit of debate I thought.

Instead some people need to go getting all emotional and start carrying on about something that leaves everyone else scratching their heads.

And if I get a bit vitriolic about Apple, I'm in good company - Europe is a big place and I think they agree. And I dont think I am going to far by saying that a lot of that belief is catalysed by Apple's unfathomable arrogance with major mobile operators. So much so that many of them have Apple to sod off. Thats my major beef with them, its very widely publicised and most Europeans who are likely buyers of this device are aware of Apples approach to selling it.

If you look at the numbers, they do NOT look good for Apple - not In Europe, even in America. In my corner of the world, Australia, Telstra hasn't been able to reach an agreement with Apple and they are the only network that can really use the iPhone to its full ability (the only network with EDGE). They have double the coverage of the next operator and one would assume that on the back of these two points Apple would instantly prefer them. Telstra told Apple to piss off.

Same thing with China. China Mobile told them to piss off too. "We do not share revenue. Period"

I wonder how many other operators told Apple the same thing.

All up, I am not so against the device, I mean hell, its not for me anyway, I am a 3g network designer and I use the qualcomm uber brick of a phone that we use to test the network with anyway. So the hardware is of limited interest to me. My other phone is a Nokia. Tried, tested, hammered, submerged, and still works.

Apple is going to have to learn to take a different approach in a market it has very limited experience in if it wants to succeed. Its that simple.

Seriously that has a lot more to do with business and consumer sentiment than anything else. In a market downturn companies lay staff off. And what we have at the moment could very easily be construed as a market downturn.

One wouldn't be surprised to see many companies cutting staff.