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iPhone not what Apple anticipated

Posted in Media, Marketing, Mel Varley, Latest reporters' blogs April 17th, 2008 by Melinda Varley

The fact that both Carphone Warehouse and O2 has refused to release sales numbers of the iPhone and now the price has been slashed by £100 is ringing alarm bells in the telecoms sector and making consumers wonder – is it all it was cracked up to be?

Apple chief exective said at the iPhone’s launch that he was aiming to sell 10 million handsets in 2008, representing one per cent of the global handset market.

The manufacturer sold more than one million iPhones in the US in the first 74 days it was on sale. Shame the same can’t be said for the UK market, but the fact that 70 per cent of UK consumers said the phone was too expensive may be something to do with it.

O2 and Carphone have started to panic that they may not reach that target and once the new 16 gig iPhone launches, the iPhone of yesteryear won’t be so attractive.

But let’s look at what makes the iPhone so special and that “must-have item”. It’s a music player and phone in one with touch screen. The truth is, it doesn’t really offer anything more than a lot of other phones on the market – for example, it doesn’t even have a camera and most handsets these days come with MP3 capabilites.

I am struggling to find the appeal of having a very expensive iPhone – it’s not even one of those handsets I would consider to have to “cool” factor. So to me, its no surprise its take up has been less than impressive.

The question is, can Apple continue down this route or is there just too much other competition in the mobile handset market?