iPhone sales just miss UK target
January 19 Mike Butcher
Apple may have just missed its sales target of 200,000 handsets sold in the first two months. Instead it looks like the figure was closer to 190,000 according to the FT’s sources. Gartner, the research firm, said in November that between 350,000 and 400,000 iPhones could be sold in the first eight weeks. Price appears to be proving a bigger barrier to sales than anticipated as handsets in the UK are normally subsidised by the network operators, often to the point of no up front cost. The prospect of a price cut looms ahead of any new version of the iPhone in order to boost sales. What is going right is that O2’s iPhone customers are proving to be heavy users of data services, something of interest to mobile startups.
Comments
January 19th, 2008 at 2:28 am
circa. 200,000 since November… i’m sorry but that sounds pretty fantastic to me. Consider that it took about the same length of time for Apple to sell 1m in the States (74 days), yet they are about 5 times bigger than this country.
I think the Gartner targets are pretty absurd.
January 19th, 2008 at 2:30 am
“The mobile operator also confirmed the iPhone was its fastest-selling handset “by a significant margin”.
I mean, at that price point and the much talked about contract, I don’t see why there is a negative spin on the story. Its been a success by pretty much any measure.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I suspect this is just O2 spin.
For a contrary account, check how it looked to the mobile retailers:
http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/iPhone_sales_a_Christmas_flop.html
January 19th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
^ a blog post with zero sources, zero figures.
I am inclined to believe the FT.