Updated: iPhone First Weekend Sales: T-Mob Shifts 10,000, UK ‘Tens Of Thousands’
By Robert Andrews - Mon 12 Nov 2007 07:23 AM PST
Updated: O2 told us “we never give out individual handset statistics” but CEO Peter Erskine said in a conference call: “It’s been the fastest selling device we have ever seen. It sold in the tens of thousands but not as many as 100,000. We had three times as many customers coming into our stores as usual” (via Evening Standard). As James notes over on mocoNews, Erskine also said two thirds of the customers were new to O2. An anonymous source on Ars Technica says O2 had 8,000 iPhone activations on Friday, more than the company expected, and that the exclusive deal between O2 and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is for five years.
Original post: From our paidContent:UK site: Prior to its launch at 6.02pm on Friday, Carphone Warehouse had forecast 10,000 iPhone sales on its first day. But in Germany, where the handset was available from 12.01am, T-Mobile was first to release its first-day sales stats, reaching the same 10,000 target and assuring in a statement: “The company is well prepared to further meet high demand for the iPhones.” That’s despite CEO Rene Obermann admitting on TV that Christmas demand could outstrip supply (via Dow Jones).
We await UK sales figures, though, without naming a source, The Mirror seems to have found out that iPhones sold “a rate of 4.2 per second at the height of the frenzy at 1,300 outlets”, while its Sunday stablemate expected ”as many as 70,000” sales from O2, Apple and Carphone shops over the weekend and “more than 400,000” approaching Christmas. O2 had pledged to create 727 jobs to handle new-customer calls and Carphone may be looking to reward its staff for dealing with a hoped-for influx - on iPhone Friday, it issued six million new shares to the market, reserved for employees (see announcement).
Posted in: Companies, Apple, Carphone Warehouse, O2, Mobile
