Filed under: Apple Corporate, iPhone
French buy 70,000 iPhones in first month
After selling 30,000 iPhones in the first five days, Orange reports this week that 70,000 iPhones were purchased in the first month. Nearly half (48%) went to new Orange customers, and 3,500 were sold unlocked. I'm a bit surprised that the number of unlocked phones sold isn't higher. Plus, if Orange sold 30,000 in the first five days and an additional 40,000 over the following three weeks, than that's a significant drop in sales. Having gone on sale just before the holidays (November 29th), I thought sales would have been more consistent.
It will be interesting to hear what numbers Steve shares at Macworld.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dwash59 said 8:21PM on 1-04-2008
Isn't France the land where the iPod has had the least success as well. That would obviously result in there being less of an Apple crowd and less excitement around the iPhone. I'm sure Apple knows enough to set their expectations for France based on how the iPod has sold.
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Drupa said 9:27PM on 1-04-2008
Frankly, I am shocked we allow sales to France. How is this allowed to happen?
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punkassjim said 9:32PM on 1-04-2008
I'd say the dropoff in sales after the first week isn't too surprising. I mean, look at the sales in the US at launch. They sold 270,000 iPhones in the last 30 business hours of June, and it took them several months to reach the one million mark. Launch sales are always outrageously higher than any given day.
And, aren't the unlocked phone outrageously high in price? I was actually shocked at how high that 3,500 number seems.
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christian said 2:19AM on 1-05-2008
Isn´t the drop of sales obivous? Who would buy the current iPhone when a new version (hopefully including larger storage and 3G support) is rumored to be avaiable within the next months? I would wait, too!
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Sam said 4:24AM on 1-05-2008
I'm not surprised that the number of unlocked phones is so low: 749 euro, that's 1100 dollar... for a phone! Wouldn't you change to Orange for 349 euro (you can almost get two)?
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Elle said 5:36AM on 1-05-2008
I'm an expat living in Paris and know many MANY French/foreign people who have iPhones - and guess what? NOT A SINGLE ONE of them bought the iPhone through Orange. They either purchased their phones in the US or ordered jailbroken units online - and they're still SFR/Bouygues clients (and happily so). The data Orange released obviously only refers to their sales and is no way indicative of the success of the iPhone in France.
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Julien said 5:40AM on 1-05-2008
The Orange plans start at 54€/month
And it locks your subscription for 24 months
if you only want to sign up for 12 months, Orange has you pay a hefty fee...
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JaXX said 5:44AM on 1-05-2008
A little amount of unlocked phones?
Simple:
Between the three operators: Orange is the one and only, jumping on the occasion of selling an iPhone tuned plan, to have unlimited data for non-professionals (BouyguesTelecom has a not too bad one for pros only with BB service).
And for once, it's not _that_ expensive compared to other plans (unlimited data + 2h+2h talk time + 50 sms for about 50€/month)... And knowing that the three operators rip off people without trying to compete (and have been sentenced for that), 50€, again, isn't that much... so why would they buy it unlocked ? (oh and switching from an operator to another is pretty quick too).
SFR has a pseudo-unlimited 3G plan, but escaping from the wap-limited subset of crappy websites they allow is tricky, and I've heard that some people complain they got misleaded by their advertising.
BouyguesTel, as said above has non public unlimited data, but I got from them that they are trying to transfer some pro plans to make them available to the public. But they barely started installing 3G and that is going to cost them a bunch.
Plus: Law gives people the right to get the phone unlocked automatically after 6 months.
Sam: it's 399€ for the locked + 2 year contract phone, not 350€ ;-)
Happy New Year btw :-)
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David Jerome said 12:49PM on 1-05-2008
@2
Why should France not be allowed to sell iphones?
@4
Are you sure about a 3G iphone?
I think Uncle Steve will use his reality distortion field and show us 1.1.3.
I can imagine his speech now "its amazing and totally 100% compatible with early iphone adopters. It has virtual GPS, so there is no need for a heavy battery draining GPS component in the iphone. Oh and one last thing, its free"
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KPO'M said 5:30PM on 1-05-2008
@9, Virtual GPS is already on Google Maps for other phones. I've used it on my Nokia N95 when out of GPS range. It's OK, but no real substitute for true GPS. It can be up to a mile off (usually it's within two blocks or so). It makes Google Maps searches far more useful (since it kind of knows where you are), but I suspect iPhone will add real GPS sometime this year (maybe next week). I used Nokia Maps while on a trip, and it came in handy (although voice navigation costs extra).
@ author - French law allows the phone to be unlocked for free after six months, and Orange offers 12-month contracts for an extra €5/month so I'm not totally surprised at the number of unlocked phones. It will be interesting to see how many customers stick with Orange, and whether other operators start offering true unlimited data plans in 6 months or a year, hoping to attract "switchers." It probably depends on how well iPhone sales continue in 2008. 70,000 isn't bad, but I think it will dampen expectations of 5 million iPhone sales by next week (1 million of which were to have come from Europe according to the rumor), unless it REALLY sold well in the US. If it did, it points to a huge disparity between US and European sales, and perhaps points to a separate Euro line in the future. A tri-band 3G variant would be much appreciated, but I wonder how Qualcomm's latest court setback would affect that prospect.
Baskee said 6:12PM on 1-05-2008
@9 i agree on that one, even though broadcom has released their super-everyhing-included chip, apple probably will keep having their current model manufactured until time's right (AT&T expanding 3g coverage in US?)
However, it would be nice seeing Europe to be the first to receive the 3g iphone, but Apple products still aren't as widespread as in the US, so its doubtfull its going to happen.
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Amit said 1:13PM on 1-06-2008
I knew it !!!
bookmarked @
http://www.livbit.com
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Justin Bell said 2:15AM on 1-11-2008
OK, I don't mean to be harsh, bust since this is a commercial blog, why aren't the people who post entries a bit more up to the job? I don't even have to be a professional sales analysis to guess that those sales numbers make sense for a product that has been anticipated for a long time -- people who planned on getting one are more likely to have made plans to pick one up or order one once they are released. The people who were more indecisive or didn't need one at the time are less likely to make the effort to get one.
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