O2 iPhone numbers - not too fantastic

No. AT&T reported 146,000 activations on the first weekend. 8,000 activations on the first DAY in the UK adjusted for population is 8 000 * (300 / 60) = 40,000, and that is only that friday from 6pm on (not the saturday and sunday, like in the US).

There's a combination of factors at work here and to say that this isn't a success is missing the point.

The key issue is price and that's what most of the media has focused on over here, which is what will influence all but the die-hard early adopters.

Firstly, we're used to free or highly subsidised contracts in the UK, so paying £269 for a phone is a big hurdle to get over, possibly the biggest and I'm amazed you've failed to mention it

There will also be a huge number of people like me who have a corporate phone contracts and therefore have no choice what handset they get, or more to the point, can't get access to a phone that's tied to one network. More to the point, they may even be, like me, on an O2 contract but unable to get an iPhone, cos there is no corporate deal for the iPhone!!!! Even though our IT dept. have tested one and checked it works for e-mail etc. and would offer it against a Blackberry Curve (for example).

But I think key is the fact that anyone who has spent any time looking around recently, will have seen loads of people using iPhones over here for some time, so all those people who were actually those diehards gonna queue up and buy one.... guess what, they already went out to the US and bought one, and hacked it, or got it from ebay....and hacked it.

Having said all of that. lets get all this in perspective. The first official announcement we got from the US was AT&T claiming 146,000 activations in "first few days" after launch (TUAW). Now the US has a population of 301 million. The UK is roughly 20% that size at 60 million, so a like for like would be 30,000 activations, in the "first few days". If we take the first few days to mean a reasonable 3 days, that's equivalent to 10,000 a day and O2 is claiming 8,000 from the first day - i.e. about 3 -5 hours trading on a cold Friday night!! No it wasn't raining.

Given all the other considerations, I'd rate that as an extraordinary effort, and given that they're saying 2/3rds of those are conversions, O2 must be ecstatic!

Rather than use raw figues, which offer no real substance, if we use percentages and assume the following:

UK population roughly 60 million

USA roughly 320 million

Then  0.01% of the UK population bought an iPhone

in the USA, 0.08%

Hi there,
I live in Germany and do now own a T-mobile iPhone. I tried to buy it on Friday, but T-mobile was unable to sell it to me. I had an O2 cotract until October 16th, and then switched to T-mobile. I did not get a Phone with my contract, and intended to switch to the iPhone once it was released. Obviously, T-mobile could not imagine that people would want to do so. First they said: You have to wait for three months, until you can change your contract. A few calls later, it was possible to switch. The phone will be sent to you. Will I get it tomorrow? No, we don't ship enterprise customer phones on saturdays.
So I did not get my phone until Monday. My impression is, that T-mobile does not want to sell the iPhones. But they do, as they don not want anyone else to sell it...
One important thing is, that the iPhone carriers in Europe were announced just 2 months before the start. Most of us first saw the iPhone in January. In the US, customers had about 5 months for making plans in order to switch to the iPhone carrier. From the first moment I wanted this phone, but Steve did not tell me where it would be sold. So a lot of European customers did not know to which operator they shoul switch. (Usually you have to cancel a contract 3 months before it expires) That was just possible for the customers of whom the contracts expired in this two month period  between announcement and sales start. As contract usually run 24 months in Germany (18 months UK?) that means just 1/12 of possible customers. (UK 1/9?)
So, big things still to come for the iPhone in Europe!

Quick, mostly related question for you Limeys; Now that O2 is offically activating iPhones is it confirmed that you can "offically" activate a Yank purchased phone on with O2. I know, I know, you are going "WTF would I do that"? But I imagine that for a few folks the visual voice mail feature would be worth any extra costs of getting locked in. Good gravy, there are people willing to drop hundreds on clothing for their dog. Surely the convience of random visual access to different voice messages has to be seen as worth a bit of extra cash to somebody. :)

Living in the UK I know first hand that 3G isn't that huge... 3 as a company aren't exactly selling loads, and 3G plans on other networks are fairly lack-luster. Most handsets are 2 -2.5G look on o2's site and you will see the most heavily promoted phones are not 3G. I know one person to say they are holding off for a 3G iphone and it think is it more to do with lack of information, Due tot the fact that the plan gives you access to 7.500 wi-fi o2 and the cloud hotspots. And wi-fi is still better than 3G, and overall coverage is pretty similar. I live in greater London and the places I most regularly go have hotspots. However I myself didn't get an iPhone for an entirely different reason I have an iPod touch. My reasoning though is not 3G but the camera on the iphone. It needs absolutely NEEDS to record video! my last 3 or 4 phones did, thats over about as many years. The annoying thing is I know apple can do it with software, Do they not realise all phone for the last 5 years or so have recorded video? I am fairly certain I am also their target market. Young male gadget lover, Apple user since a performa, one macbook pro 2 Mac Pro's in the house. An Ipod, a nano and an ipod touch also around the house. We are apple centric and yet I was not won over... so I partly expected it to be a bit of a washout. That being said the advertising campaign didn't seem to hit here until the launch day. (still no ipod touch adverts though)

is it that big a deal?

what, for example, was the comparative sales of the XBox or PS3 between the US and UK; or the latest version of Halo? Europe has always tended to be more circumspect with product adoption compared to the US; high prices and taxes playing a part.

It's worth noting that the first day of sales was 6pm on an Winter Friday, vs a summer release in the US, so it would have already been dark by the time the iPhone went on sale here.

It's also worth noting that the iPhone is a step back in technoogy for many people here - the fact that it has no 3G, no stereo bluetooth, no detachable battery, and a 2 megapixel camera with no flash or other features (now that's five year old technology right there) - is pretty bad. It's like the iPhone has half ground-breaking technology and the rest is all bog-standard stuff that's barely enough to get by.

We're used to better here, and cheaper tarriffs, too. And also, since the iPhone has been out for so long in the US, it already feels a little old here, so I'm sure many people are waiting for the next generation with these things fixed.

o2 is the big Mobile Phones network provider in the UK. contract between o2 and apple iphones is great deal for iphone market.