Non-UK readers: please be aware that the Sun and the Mirror are both happy to fabricate stories. If it ever comes to court, the damages awarded (edit: for a front-page banner lie) are usually of the same order as the daily earnings from the paper, and it doesn’t usually go that far anyway.

I am sure neither the 70,000 nor the 100,000 are correct for the first weekend. I think we now have evidence from multiple sources putting the UK figure for the weekend around 30K.

And don’t forget, unlike any other handset maker, Apple is making huge profit margins on each iPhone via the revenue share. Inevitably that makes each sale a little harder.

With O2 confirming 8000 activations on Launch Friday, I am increasingly confident in my estimates.

I’m sticking with approx 30k sales in total (that may prove slightly on the high side), including Apple Store/on-line sales. The Sun and the Mirror are doing a classic “pump and dump” story on the numbers. Nobody expected 70k sales, let alone 100k.

25-30k is a hot number and still makes the iPhone the most successful handset launch, ever, in the UK.. WTF more do people want?

More on the O2 activation numbers and the length of the iPhone Apple contract

O2 on iPhone: 8,000 activations on day one, 5-year contract

I should add that if Apple was Microsoft, it would have announced sales of 200,000 iPhones (that being roughly the number “in the channel” at O2 and CPW stores at the moment) for the opening weekend.

I know that Apple counted units shipped into AT&T as part of its sales numbers for the opening weekend in the US, so there’s always a chance they will do that here too. However, my bet is that they won’t comment on it and will leave it for O2 and CPW to do the talking.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]I know that Apple counted units shipped into AT&T as part of its sales numbers for the opening weekend in the US, so there’s always a chance they will do that here too. However, my bet is that they won’t comment on it and will leave it for O2 and CPW to do the talking.

Since it was a quarter - end, that is a figure they had to disclose anyway. By consultation with AT&T, they could effectively pick whatever figure they wanted.

Also, there’s an important difference from the US launch. In the UK, Apple cannot hope to sell as high a proportion in Apple stores. Only one in a hundred outlets is an Apple store here; whereas one in ten was in the US. The majority of the stock will be in O2/Carphone’s hands today; I don’t think this was the case in the US.

Looks like Vodafone are playing dirty tricks. Engdget report that they’re “disconnection” line is, ummm, disconnected. Voda customers calling to cancel their contract are asked to call back later

Vodafone’s solution to iPhone-related defections: shutdown customer service?
Posted Nov 12th 2007 6:08AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

The Inquirer is reporting that Vodafone UK’s customer service line used for defecting customers is down. In fact, it’s been down the entire weekend since the iPhone’s Friday launch. Instead, Vodafone customers looking to change their status to O2 customers are being greeted with an automated voice response asking them to try again later. Coincidence? Maybe. It’s certainly timely having already witnessed the carrier defection rate following the US launch.

One other reason not mentioned why first weekend sales might be weaker than expected.  I think a sizable proportion of would-be early iPhone customers in Europe already have one of the 250k unlocked units.

[quote author=“macglenn”]One other reason not mentioned why first weekend sales might be weaker than expected.  I think a sizable proportion of would-be early iPhone customers in Europe already have one of the 250k unlocked units.

Yep. One is Tommo and another is me!

I just returned from Barnstaple (the main town in a rural part of the UK with low wages). I had a fairly mixed experience.

There are two iPhone outlets in the High Street: O2 and Carphone Warehouse, which are about 30 seconds walk apart. Both had iPhone posters in the window and no posters for anything else.

I went into O2 first. As you walk in there is a display island with iPhones and iPod touches on it right in front of you. There was a dedicated salesman there to answer any questions and talk you through the iPhone. They also had a list of 10 Cloud hotspots in the area.

There was a young guy in there who looked like a student, who seemed very keen to get one and was surprised that the iPhone was only Ј269 (he thought it would be Ј400). I asked about Edge coverage and the sales guy dodged my question by pushing the Cloud and WiFi, which is good as he didn’t say that we don’t have Edge coverage here (I don’t think we have Edge at the moment in this area). I asked if there had been much interest in the iPhone and he said that they had been flying out of the shop. I got the feeling that their stock was running low. I asked how many they had sold and he told me that they weren’t allowed to say. When I pressed him with: “more than 10?”, he said “Oh, way more than that”. Clearly great news.

Then I went into Carphone Warehouse. I soon got the impression that the iPhone posters were a token gesture and they would sell the iPhone like any other phone. No special efforts were made.

There were two iPhones on a stand to one side on the left, near the rear of the shop with a few iPhone accessories and a cabinet with some iPods in it, but no iPod touches. All the sales staff were behind the counter about 5 feet from where I was playing with the iPhones. I played with the iPhones and loitered by the iPhone accessories for almost 10 minutes. In that time nobody came over and asked if I needed any assistance. All the 3 sales people looked like they had no intention of coming out from behind the counter and would let people come to them.

As a few customers came in while I was there it looked like it would take a while for someone to come free to answer any questions about the iPhone. In the end I gave up waiting and left like any potential iPhone buyer would do as they head off for the O2 shop.

From these two experiences I can see the O2 shops as being the places where the majority of iPhones in the UK will be sold. They are pushing the iPhone hard. The only way Carphone Warehouse will sell any is if the O2 shops run out. I appreciate that this is only a couple of data points, but we can deduce several things: the iPhone is not just appealing to people in large urban centres, it’s selling well in rural areas too; O2 is pushing the iPhone hard; Carphone Warehouse is treating the iPhone like any other phone.

Wheeles, thanks for the report. You experiences seem almost identical to those I reported from my own recon over the weekend. The shopping experience in O2 is miles apart from CPW. O2’s 5-year commitment to the iPhone obviously means they have far more at stake than CPW, to whom its just one phone amongst many.

[quote author=“carbonat”][quote author=“macglenn”]One other reason not mentioned why first weekend sales might be weaker than expected.  I think a sizable proportion of would-be early iPhone customers in Europe already have one of the 250k unlocked units.

Yep. One is Tommo and another is me!

and me - and the other 5 I incentivated on this small island of 80.000 inhabitants.

[quote author=“ghobi”][quote author=“carbonat”]
Yep. One is Tommo and another is me!

and me - and the other 5 I incentivated on this small island of 80.000 inhabitants.

LOL I started to do the same.

MobileSafari

An interesting tidbit from   fscklog :
With regards to browser statistics on his site he reports that having had an averige of 10 readers until the middle of september, this number had been 10 fold after the introduction of the iPod touch in Germany. Rose slowly but steadily over time. On Friday with the introduction of the iPhone the number was doubled. See this   grafic or go to the original (german)   article .
Not that tis nubmers of readers are huge - but still an interesting trend.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]Wheeles, thanks for the report. You experiences seem almost identical to those I reported from my own recon over the weekend. The shopping experience in O2 is miles apart from CPW. O2’s 5-year commitment to the iPhone obviously means they have far more at stake than CPW, to whom its just one phone amongst many.

Another thing I forgot to note is that when the young student guy started going on about waiting until next year for a pre-pay iPhone, the salesman disabused him of that idea saying it would be a lot longer than that. Also his attitude about O2’s contract with Apple for the iPhone sounded like they had it exclusively for way longer than 2 years.

Although I mentioned it, I was still very impressed by the way the salesman was more than happy to push the iPod touch also. I imagine O2 have got some nice reciprocal agreement with Apple on the iPod touch to make them more than happy to sell those as an alternative.

At launch the Exeter (also Devon) city centre O2 store had around 50 queuing and the Carphone Warehouse stores 30 and 20 respectively, so they had equal opportunity to make sales. So it seems Carphone have wasted their opportunity.

As regards web stats, the stark contrast between iPhone and Symbian/Windows Mobile browser stats by contrast with the installed base stats shows that the other smartphone users barely use the web in comparison to iPhone users.