Apple’s iPhone 3G Worldwide Rollout Not So Maniac
Apple continued its worldwide drive to dominate the 3G cell-phone market with iPhone 3G rollouts this week in parts of Europe, South America, the Far East, and India. Demand in all locales, however, wasn’t nearly as high as in the U.S.
Analysts chalked up the less-than-manic reception to the high price of the iPhone 3G as well as the cost for 3G data service in many countries.
‘Acting’ Like It’s a Must-Have
In India, an iPhone 3G retails for more than $700 with bundled service — hardly affordable for middle-class Indians with a per-capita income of only $3,000. As a result, Vodafone, the India iPhone provider, is expected to sell the phone on installment plans.
Elsewhere, 3G data expenses for a year’s subscription easily make the iPhone 3G three to four times more expensive than competing cell phones and plans.
Such is the case in Poland, where local carrier Orange hired actors to pose as people waiting in line in front of its stores. Orange officials admitted they pulled the stunt to fuel interest in the launch. Competitor T-Mobile, which also offers the iPhone 3G in Poland, played the launch straight with no queues — real or fake — outside its Warsaw storefronts.
Reports from New Zealand put the cost of the iPhone 3G at more than $1,000 with bundled service, but they are selling. Some stores in South America ran out of the device on launch day, and iPhone 3Gs showed up on Argentina’s eBay.
Slow But Steady Overseas
Reports from the United Kingdom and Germany, where the iPhone 3G was launched at the same time as in the U.S., have the device selling, but not flying off the shelves. The UK’s exclusive carrier, O2, is even tripling minutes and text-messaging limits to help sales. 02 reportedly wanted to sell 200,000 units by this time but fell short of its goal. And in the worldwide allocation game, if you don’t sell it, you lose it.
Piper Jaffrey’s Gene Munster pegs Apple’s potential iPhone 3G customer base at more than 660 million. But Apple won’t come close to hitting that number anytime soon. The official Apple line on sales is that it expects to hit 10 million by the end of the year.
Current production of the iPhone 3G is expected to ramp up to nearly 150,000 per day, and rumors are circulating on blogs that Apple intends to push to sell 45 million iPhones by August 2009. That’s ambitious, given the softer-than-expected overseas sales, according to some analysts.
A launch in Russia is scheduled in phase three of the rollout in October. Analysts estimate another 1.5 million to three million units could hit Soviet streets before year’s end. Another wild card is China — still with no official iPhone 3G launch scheduled.
In the U.S., Apple has inked an agreement with Best Buy, instantly adding hundreds of new outlets for the iPhone 3G.