UK: Update: how busy were the shops selling the iPhone 3GS today?

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As I said in my post yesterday, today I planned to go to the local shops for both O2 and Carphone Warehouse, and check out what the throng was like for the iPhone 3GS – you might (or might not) be surprised by the answer….

Let’s recap on yesterday (launch day) first though:

Yesterday was a somewhat strange day – apparently, it wasn’t that busy anywhere, including at Apple’s flagship store in London. I checked out two local shops – one O2 shop and one Carphone Warehouse – to see what the public response to the device going on sale was.

So in summary, (1) it certainly wasn’t crazy-busy, and (2) the variant of choice on the day was the white iPhone 3GS 16GB. I wonder in fact whether the premium of £90 for an extra 16GB of memory in the 32GB device had been deterring people.

Anyway, back to today – I checked out the same two shops locally, at about 3pm this afternoon – what I saw REALLY surprised me! The shops were both very quiet, in fact Carphone Warehouse only had two staff in it (for what was actually a reasonably big shop). The O2 shop had about 4 staff. Here’s the thing though – there were only 2-3 customers in each store….! Now this could be because the iPhone had sold out for example, but, I would suggest that isn’t the case – because it wasn’t (in my experience yesterday) selling at a stunningly fast rate yesterday (so likely stock would be leftover).

Somewhat strangely, the rest of the shopping centre was buzzing and busy, so why these two shops were seemingly more quiet than usual (they were quieter than I’ve usually seen them on a Saturday), when the 3GS has just been launched, is a question I can’t definitively answer. Back to the cost issue perhaps?

So there you have it, after what could be regarded as a reasonable launch day for the 3GS, things went very quiet indeed today. If there’s anyone at O2 or Carphone Warehouse out there that wants to comment on what sales were actually/generally like, please do – it would be very interesting to see what people made of the 3GS sell-rate, from the other side of the sales counter…

About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.

Pachi

I think the USA was the only place that people line the iPhone.
JonH

Are there actually any facts in your post? This is probably the least scientific assessment I have ever read. Pure speculation not even based on any proper research. I’m no fanboy and I am not defending O2 in any way (they are money grabbing swines and CPW are no better) but at least do some proper research. Did you get there early enough to see if there was a queue? What time did you visit the stores? Which stores did you visit – you only say local? Do you live in a particularly downtrodden and recession hit area of the UK?

The other thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is that Apple announced and released this product within the same pay-month. I would imagine that some people did not have the funds to hand as previously Apple have announced in June and launched in July, giving potential customers a pay-day in between. This probably has a lot to do with the somewhat slower sales.
JonH

Also .. you said “Somewhat strangely, the rest of the shopping centre was buzzing and busy, so why these two shops were seemingly more quiet than usual” .. Do you spend a lot of time hanging around the o2 shop and studying customer flow?
Jack

I work at a Rogers store in Canada and must say that this launch brought nowhere near as much excitement as the 3G did. The store was relatively quiet for most of the day and we still have the 3GS in stock. There were no lineups and no mobs of Apple fanboys this time. In fact i didn’t even sell one yesterday and sold about 15 other phones. Customers just aren’t interested in a phone that costs an insane amount of money and only now does what every other decent smartphone on the market can do.
SharonW

Cost is obviously an issue in light of the considerable additional amount over the newbie price that upgraders would have to pay. I’m sure most current owners came to the conclusion that they’ll be satisfied enough with the 3.0 upgrade until their AT&T contracts put them in the subsidy upgrade zone.

Curiously, since the phone is being offered in 8 countries and analysts speculate that 500,000 will be sold this weekend, simple math (but obviously not properly percentaged out by country math) would come out to approximately 62,000 iPhones sold per country, putting the iPhone 3GS on par with first weekend sales for the Pre in the U.S. where sales are believed to be around 100,000.

I’d say, set and match at this point.