UK: iPhone launch – Ben’s perspective
By Ben Robinson on Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 9:38 AM PST In Apple, O2
Hey y’all, hopefully you caught us for the live launch of the iPhone 3GS sales effort in the US? Our very own Will and Tom were there in person, recording all sorts of things from nipples to moonwalks – oh, and the occasional bit of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) footage too!
Stefan, Daniel, Simon, and myself joined on the chatroom for some live interaction – and that’s the funniest Friday I’ve had in a long while!
But to get back on-point: what happened in the UK? Well, I’ll come to the reports I’ve heard/read about in another post, but let me offer you my own perspective first, because yours truly was out and about at O2 (NYSE: TEF) stores this very morning!
(FYI before we get all in the mix with the comments, I’m based in BERKSHIRE UK, so the places I mention are in that county – about 50 or so miles outside London)
So first I went to the O2 store in READING, where I found queues of about 30 people – apparently there was a brisk trade in Pre-pay devices, which I found fascinating – I certainly couldn’t bring myself to spend £440-530 on the device to get it outright! The queue was very orderly (as you would expect in the world’s leading nation at queueing!), and staff were offering coffee and muffins to people waiting! Nice touch. Estimating the queue to be about 1 hour, I figured I would pop on over to a nearby town, to check another store….
(Oh and in between the two stores I went to assist someone having a diabetic fit, but that’s another story…)
Onward to BRACKNELL, a much small place than READING, but with an O2 Store nonetheless. Whilst the queues had maintained a consistent 30 people at READING (apparently), BRACKNELL had started off at near-20 people, and then had dropped to between 3-5 people by the time I arrived (about 1000hrs). So in simple terms it was much less busy (although that didn’t stop them selling out of white-backed iPhones….). There wasn’t coffee and muffins on offer either, just water – boo.
Overall then, a brisk trade, but there wasn’t any insanity in terms of queue length, people completely losing it or fainting, or any moonwalking (sorry, that’s an in-joke, you’ll get it if you were on the live webcast this morning).
My feeling: not that busy. People are not easy swallowing the mega device/tariff cost – it ain’t cheap, that’s for sure! (Too) high pricing affects business…
So, the UK hasn’t sold out of iPhones, as predicted by that sham of a paper, the Daily Mail. Thought it was unlikely myself.
Ben: I’m going to shell out for a PAYG handset. I know it’s a lot to pay up front but a mere £10 a month gives you a reasonable 500 minutes (and you get ‘unlimited’ data for a year – thereafter another tenner a month). So by reckoning at least it’ll work out cheaper than signing up for an 18-month contract. Just hope I don’t lose it! Will have to give my home insurance company a call to see if it’s covered!
Rob: good plan dude!
Yes there’s a hype machine knocking around in the UK, trying to stir things up. From some of the shop staff being cagey about stock, through to some papers overblowing things it seems.
Bottom line: I was there, I checked stuff out, and demand was reasonably paced. Shops will I think still have stock on Sat, and apparently more is due soon.
I also checked out the Reading shop. Coffee and muffins were a nice touch. However, the queues were nothing compared to last year. There were some queues in-store at lunchtime, but then that’s always the case,
Anecdotally, it seems most sales were to new customers or PAYG phones. I don’t know anyone who has paid off their contract and upgraded. I’m certainly not to pay O2 through the nose to do so…