UK IPhone sales flop
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
I still maintain that I love this device but it has to be said Apple and O2 were wrong to put out such an aggressive sales plan and it looks like its goingto backfire unless they slash the price of the phone or allow a 12 month contract instead of an 18 month one.
Its wierd how T Mobile claim they have sold 10000 so far. Apple dont want to comment on the UK but I think its probably in the region of around 6 - 7000.
I still maintain that I love this device but it has to be said Apple and O2 were wrong to put out such an aggressive sales plan and it looks like its goingto backfire unless they slash the price of the phone or allow a 12 month contract instead of an 18 month one.
Its wierd how T Mobile claim they have sold 10000 so far. Apple dont want to comment on the UK but I think its probably in the region of around 6 - 7000.
Comments
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
I still maintain that I love this device but it has to be said Apple and O2 were wrong to put out such an aggressive sales plan and it looks like its goingto backfire unless they slash the price of the phone or allow a 12 month contract instead of an 18 month one.
Its wierd how T Mobile claim they have sold 10000 so far. Apple dont want to comment on the UK but I think its probably in the region of around 6 - 7000.
I'm not sure I agree with the Daily Mail... it's the first contract phone I've ever seen a queue for however small/large. i think they just wanted to print a hit piece.
A lot of the papers seem to be doing that at the moment (probably due to the popularity of the iPod). They all keep saying how it's a £900 device which is absolute bullshit, since when do you include service charges as part of price? They seem to be attacking everything they can. One of the biggest things they focus on (which still cracks me up) is how it only has 8Gb of storage!!! Most phones on the market up until now have had 256Mb or less!!!! It's the same crap people were spewing about the iPod 6 years ago.
I got mine at about 6:15 on launch day and it's seriously the best phone I've ever used. There were a lot of people checking it out (and purchasing it!!).
Just wait for the official figures. I wouldn't be at all surprised if sales have gone beyond 10,000 in the UK.
I don't care if people don't get what the game is with the iPhone: it ain't competing with any other phone folks unless you regard a Ferrari passing a horse drawn cart as a competition.
The advert doesn't really do much to encourage sales though. It actually sounds quite patronizing; some stereotypical english voice saying 'it's internet on your phone'. Yeah we know Apple, thanks for dumbing it down though.
Give it a month and weigh up all online purchases and then we'll know if it's popular or not. Like others have said, I don't see it having anywhere near the amount of sales it has in America but we don't have anywhere near the same amount of people - 15 million vs 500 million maybe. America is a continent remember not a country (god now I'm dumbing things down). Collective European sales should be compared to American sales. You also have to consider how many people are in long contracts, who don't like O2, who are saving money for Christmas, who actually don't need a new phone, who don't want to pay £35 a month and the number of possible sales gets pretty small.
I can see O2 selling the few hundred thousand they have eventually but it'll be in steady sales and possibly after lots of annoying telemarketing.
As for the time of year and people dont want to go out I think thats rubbish. November is busy for xmas shopping and its always dark, murky and wet in England especially this time of year. The fact is its a great device. But the fact is also that the device is cripple in terms of what Eurpeans have come to expect for a mobile phone and putting that with a steep forced contract wasnt the best idea. It just showed how greedy Apple were and it could backfire. The funny thing is I think it will be even worse when it hits Asia. I mean those guys even make us Europeans look prehistoric with their phones.
FWIW, Ars is reporting 8000 activations this weekend. Seems light to me but Ars thinks it isn't bad.
How do you folks in the UK rate Ars. I've been concerned with ATT in the US, where I live most of the time and wondering about what will happen in Japan, but I do travel to London and Edinburgh pretty regularly too..
I think Apple will have to do a price slash after xmas to boost the sales. Whether this will come in conjunction with an announcment of a bigger capacity iphone or a totally new iphone remains to be seen. Still 8000 isnt bad.
To be honest people arnt that bothered about paying the £270 for the handsetbut its te minutes you get with it. Its good to have the free wifi and data but we really should have gotten more minutes and texts. Apple are quite greedy and will take a lot of money from sales not during launch but over the 18 months also.
A few of my friends have got Nokia N95's, which is a good phone, but it's not as great as everyone makes it out to be. Yes it has much of the same features, and in some cases more (video) but it's still a pain in the a*se to use because it uses the traditional 'buttoned' keypad. The touchscreen and OS are the main reasons I would buy an iPhone, and in that respect it is in a completely different league to any other phone out there at the moment.
With regards to not having 3G - I won't use that much anyway. As someone else mentioned earlier in this thread, 99% of the time I will want to get on the web I will be near a wifi hotspot, and I would imagine the Edge network built by O2 will probably get better - they've only just built it after all.
I just think this is a classic case of 'PC Minded' people creating a backlash against Apple. Apple fans are constantly having a pop at PC users for many reasons - most of which are true, so the PC world feels the need to have a pop back. Unfortunately their reasoning is not founded.
I think the £269 for the iPhone is a bit too expensive, and for that reason I have not bought one yet. I think after Xmas they will bring out a 16gb version for the existing £269 price, and drop the 8gb version to around £199, which I think is a fair price. With regards to the contract, £35 a month isn't too much to pay, and 18 month contracts are pretty much the norm now anyway, and although a few more inclusive minutes and texts would be nice, I don't think it's essential. You've just got to change the way you think and use the product, maximising on the web based communication solutions instead of the traditional telecoms.
I can't believe I've ranted so much here! Sorry everyone!!
How do you folks in the UK rate Ars. I've been concerned with ATT in the US, where I live most of the time and wondering about what will happen in Japan, but I do travel to London and Edinburgh pretty regularly too..
Ars is a tech web site. O2 is the carrier in GB.
1) it has no 3G
2) it has a crappy 2 mega pixel camera with no autofocus/ flash
3) you cannot record video clips on it
4)it has no GPS
5) it has no in-built radio (FM or DAB radio)
6) you cannot replace the battery or SIM
7) you cannot upgrade the memory with a memory card
8) you cannot customise the interface as you wish (wallpapers, icons?), neither can you use the songs you save on this phone as your ringtone
9) tied to one operator and apple's attempt to lock the phone? ripoff
i will go on the record and say that i suspect it will equally fail to set trails blazing in its launches in the advanced countries of asia - japan, korea, etc for the same reasons given above. besides, the delayed launch for asia has given the competition fair time to develop their own answers the iphone.
apple have made a revolutionary product, but have hampered it so badly that all its innovation is tarnished. this infuriates and frustrates me, as i so badly want an iphone but am discouraged by its drawbacks and the fact my current phone has more functionality than this phone!!!
A) a massive flop
This is more to do with the agendas of the people writing than the truth.
First-hand it seemed like the sales went about as well as the US launch.
I was at the Meadowhall Mall. There were, I'd say, about 70 people in the line for the Apple store. About 35 in front of the O2 shop. And around 4 or 5 in front of each of the Carphone outlets.
The Apple store processed the 70 person line (and presumably sold 70 phones) in the first 20 minutes. The store had lots of stock and did not sell out.
At the US launch, the Apple store lines were about the same length. But there are only about 10 Apple stores in the UK versus the 150? in the US.
Next day all the stores seemed very busy. One interesting observation is that Carphone is letting customers touch and use working phones in store. This is new. Normally, customers have to make do with handling dummies tethered to the wall.
C.
Like others have said, I don't see it having anywhere near the amount of sales it has in America but we don't have anywhere near the same amount of people - 15 million vs 500 million maybe.
No, the UK has a population of over 70 million (give or take a few hundred thousand immigrant workers the Home Office have lost count of). We also have more than 100% penetration of phones. ie. more phones than people.
USA (since the iPhone isn't out elsewhere in America (North, Central or South)) has a population of 303 million (according to U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division)
I'm not going to do the maths from here as I'll just get jumped on by the Jesus Phone believers.
No, the UK has a population of over 70 million (give or take a few hundred thousand immigrant workers the Home Office have lost count of). We also have more than 100% penetration of phones. ie. more phones than people.
USA (since the iPhone isn't out elsewhere in America (North, Central or South)) has a population of 303 million (according to U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division)
I'm not going to do the maths from here as I'll just get jumped on by the Jesus Phone believers.
That would be the iJesus Phone believers.
That would be the iJesus Phone believers.
Look. I-- I'd had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was, 'That piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.'
without sounding too smug, i long suspected the iphone could possibly be a flop in the UK. the british public are too sophisticated to fall for just the 'pretty face' of the iphone. the US is behind europe in telephony development, and the british demand more from their phones than the iphone and its hype could deliver. to list just a few ways this phone falls behind the competition and hence doesn't fulfil its full potential:
1) it has no 3G
2) it has a crappy 2 mega pixel camera with no autofocus/ flash
3) you cannot record video clips on it
4)it has no GPS
5) it has no in-built radio (FM or DAB radio)
6) you cannot replace the battery or SIM
7) you cannot upgrade the memory with a memory card
8) you cannot customise the interface as you wish (wallpapers, icons?), neither can you use the songs you save on this phone as your ringtone
9) tied to one operator and apple's attempt to lock the phone? ripoff
i will go on the record and say that i suspect it will equally fail to set trails blazing in its launches in the advanced countries of asia - japan, korea, etc for the same reasons given above. besides, the delayed launch for asia has given the competition fair time to develop their own answers the iphone.
apple have made a revolutionary product, but have hampered it so badly that all its innovation is tarnished. this infuriates and frustrates me, as i so badly want an iphone but am discouraged by its drawbacks and the fact my current phone has more functionality than this phone!!!
No phone has ALL of that- and it has many things that other phones don't have. An iPhone with all of that would be sweet, but it's not gonna happen.
1) it has no 3G
2) it has a crappy 2 mega pixel camera with no autofocus/ flash
3) you cannot record video clips on it
4)it has no GPS
5) it has no in-built radio (FM or DAB radio)
6) you cannot replace the battery or SIM
7) you cannot upgrade the memory with a memory card
8) you cannot customise the interface as you wish (wallpapers, icons?), neither can you use the songs you save on this phone as your ringtone
9) tied to one operator and apple's attempt to lock the phone? ripoff
You're right, there are a lot of options that the iPhone could have that it doesn't. To deliver a phone that was had a revolutionary touch interface, yet was still semi-affordable required some trade-offs though, like: no GPS, no built-in radio, no 3G, 2mp camera. Looking at it in retrospect as to what apple has created, I agree with a lot of the trade-offs that were made. This is why the iPhone's customer-satisfaction ratings are off the charts. However, like you, I am looking forward to a 16GB 3G model...
The only thing that lets it down in any way at all is the camera. The pixel count is fine, but the performace in anything other than natural lighting isn't great, but it's not like that's a big deal. I certainly wouldn't say that the launch in the UK was a flop. I got mine on launch day and there were at least 200 people in the queue at the Apple store I went to.
I have to say I love my iPhone. It is actually better than I expected it to be. As soon as my number ports I'll be throwing my crappy N95 in the bin. I can't believe jurnos still compair the iPhone to the N series Nokias - cheap lumps of plastic! EDGE is quicker than I thought it would be, not that far off 3G in fact, I can text and email using the iPhone keyboard much faster than I can on the Nokia - at least twice as fast. I actually took notes at a meeting on my iPhone with no problems at all.
The only thing that lets it down in any way at all is the camera. The pixel count is fine, but the performace in anything other than natural lighting isn't great, but it's not like that's a big deal. I certainly wouldn't say that the launch in the UK was a flop. I got mine on launch day and there were at least 200 people in the queue at the Apple store I went to.
Me too. I'm totally impressed with it. The iPhone makes all the rest feel like something out of the Flintstones.
Geeks always try to compare things by counting up the number of features. The more features the better. But the iPhone is not quantitatively better. It is qualitatively better.
Petrol-heads don't do this. The better car is not the one with the most gadgets, but the one with the better driving experience.
C.
No phone has ALL of that- and it has many things that other phones don't have. An iPhone with all of that would be sweet, but it's not gonna happen.
i have not asked for things on the iphone that do not already exist. the nokia N95 has all of the above. the sony ericsson k850 and LG KU990 are not far behind (excluding GPS). my point being that there are a lot of compromises the iphone has made that are not neccessary. i feel we are going down the ipod route, where incremental improvements will be made over time and people will have to continue buying the improved model. the big difference this time, however, is that it will cost customers a lot more...