iPhone holds 21 percent market share in Australia

I live in Melbourne, Australia.

I was in a meeting the other day with my team management. 5 people - 5 iphones.

Look out, it is Joanna D, ready again to lambast anyone foolish enough to post an article on TUAW!

You know the saying, right - "Those who can't, criticise."

Anyway, I personally doubt that mass export of Australian iPhones (to Kuwait or anywhere else) is a major factor in the 21 percent result.

For starters, those who where keen enough to import an iPhone had most likely already done so from America ... those models were easily unlocked, so there was no need to wait for unlocked models to go on sale elsewhere in the world.

And for most locations, it costs more to get things sent from Australia than other places because we're more remote, so Kuwaiti importers would have been getting them from Europe, if they were smart, not Australia.

I am amazed at the way your brain thinks - "iPhone successful? No, no, must just be exports, hey." How do you think about other successes?

"Windows number one desktop OS? No, no, I am sure Microsoft just buys tens of millions of copies of its own OS to boost the figures."

"Indian population more than a billion? No, no, they must be making lots of cardboard standees. They're just counting cardboard standees, I'm sure."

Not only smartphone buyers buy the phone, so you shouldnt single out smartphones by themselves, it seems unrealistic.

I think that even with the export market from here, iphones are ver prominent. All I see on Melbourne's trams, streets and trains are people playing on their iPhones. For instance, the year 12s at my school - I'd hazard a guess and say about 30-40 of us have iPhones. then, about 20 more have a smartphone of some sort. The rest (about 30) have a regular phone, with half of them wanting to upgrade.

21%? I doubt that.

I'm from Kuwait and most of the iPhones soled here came from Australia. And I'm sure not only in Kuwait.

Or a more likely explanation for the huge market share is that most of the unlocked iPhone users in europe got them from australia via ebay and numerous websites selling them...

Also notable is that the iPhone is sold on all carriers in Australia and it has been that way since launch.