iPhone. UK. O2.
September 16th, 2007
So this might be common knowledge, but for those not in the know, I got this from a sales person at my local O2 store.
No idea of the timescale (roll on tuesday), but they say the iPhone will be £300 for the handset on existing contracts eligible for upgrade and £600 for the handset outright.
This means I've got a 2 month wait - worth it for £300 I think...
Oh, also a neurotic guy from the Apple store told me today that they're expecting iPod touches in on the 28th of September.
Update
So the real figures are out. I've no idea where the sales person at the O2 store got the £600 from... As for the £300, I can only think that they were adding VAT. Anyway, just goes to show that you shouldn't listen to sales people :0)
7 Responses to “iPhone. UK. O2.”
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September 16th, 2007 at 09:36 PM
You have to be kidding, right?
If Guy Kewney is correct (and I see no reason why he should not be), this will be an eight megabyte, non-3G handset. If O2 are selling the handsets unlocked for £600, they are making a truly ridiculous profit (GBP350 inc VAT would be a bit more like it).
And 300 quid as an upgrade, when the handsets are only $400 unsubsidised in the US, is a joke. Remember that upgrade pricing still usually locks you into an extended contract. If you give them ordinary airtime fees for an extended contract and give them 300 quid for a phone, you're being mugged, because you're buying the handset essentially outright but still giving them the extra connection money you would normally pay for a subsidised phone.
Do yourself a favour and wait until early next year when there will be a 3G handset for sure.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:37 PM
This sounds like bullshit to me. The 8GB iPhone in the states is priced the same as the 16GB iPod touch. The iPod touch is £269 over here so the iPhone will more than likely be the same - £300 max. But £600? No chance - if it is, they can go whistle. Nobody is gonna pay £600 for a phone.
September 17th, 2007 at 07:26 AM
Oh hell yeah. When she said '£600' I was pretty surprised, but as I mentioned, I was just asking about my existing contract. My thinking is that they're trying to put people off upgrading until the 'handset upgrade' period.
Either that or it was bollocks...
September 17th, 2007 at 06:52 PM
Stephen, I think you're probably right.
One thing which occurs to me though is that the £600 might be their 'internal pricing' of the handset - that is, a price which is never charged because there's always some sort of subsidy (a bit like the standard rail fare).
An alternative possibility is that the business model in the UK can't be the same as it is in the USA. As far as I know, the kickback to Apple wouldn't be legal here, and a handset tied to one network isn't going to succeed anyway (as well as being illegal in some european states, I gather).
If Apple can't get a slice of the revenue, maybe they really are touting a higher handset price to the networks. After all, they get a cut of two years of connection revenue from AT&T. I can't imagine AT&T will be too happy if the european networks simply get out of that deal at no extra cost.
AT&T might also be the reason why the unbundled (presumably EDGE-only) handset is so expensive; to make it inefficient to buy it here and export it back to the states and run it on a competitor's network.
September 18th, 2007 at 01:57 PM
Luke, looks like you were spot-on! The official announcement today puts it at exactly £269.
£600 would either cause a wave of black-market unlocked imports or people buying cheaper, and often better specced competitor's phones. Neither of which would be worth the extra margin in the price tag to Apple or O2.