iPhone World:
Does iPhone break European consumer-protection law? It seems that’s up to individual countries to decide.
Apple avoided a major trouble in the European Union after European consumer protection commissioner Meglena Kuneva decided that national courts have to deal with Apple’s exclusive iPhone distribution contracts in Europe.
She was asked by Said El Khadraoui, a European Parliament member who is a Belgian socialist (interesting part is that the iPhone was not even announced for Belgium as of yet), whether Apple’s exclusive contracts with carriers break the European consumer-protection law.
Mr El Khadraoui stated “I’d like to urge the commission to start talks with Apple to signal the difficulty they may have with this. The commission could give a clear signal to Apple and tell them that this isn’t a good situation from a consumer-protection point of view,” although it seems his effort has failed.
Last year French courts decided that French Apple iPhone distributor Orange has to offer unlocked versions of the device to consumers, while German courts decided that German iPhone distributor T-Mobile can offer the iPhone exclusively.
Thanks: International Herald Tribune
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Written by dennis on January 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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According to O2, a sole provider of iPhone in the UK, its sales are not as good as they had initially expected.
This November, Matthew Key, a soon-to-be O2 CEO, said that he hoped to have around 200,000 units sold in the first 2 months. However they only sold 190,000, according to people familiar with the situation. It seems that iPhones relatively steep £269 price is not the only thing stopping it from being more popular. There is also 18 month contract, with £35 per month to pay.
Interestingly enough, Gartner (research firm) has predicted 350k-400k units sold in the first 8 weeks.
Still even with lesser then expected sales, there was three times as many customers visiting O2 stores compared to the same period last year. People might not be buying iPhones, but they are tempted to replace their aging mobile phones with something newer, knowing the technology out there. Whether iPhone has anything to do with that is unknown.
Whether O2 had a successful quarter will be known in February when O2 will publish their quarterly gains.
Thanks: Independant and FinancialTimes
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Written by David on January 22nd, 2008 with no comments.
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According to French iPhone distributor Orange Chairman and Chief Executive Didier Lombard the company had an “exceptional” holiday period in store sales.
And although the iPhone had average sales in France, the company still benefited from the additional buzz the iPhone generated. “The important impact was the impact in terms of image,” Mr Lombard told during an interview given to France’s BFM radio.
According to Mr Lombard the amount of customers in Orange stores was “the highest we [Orange] have ever seen.”
Thanks: MarketWatch
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Written by dennis on January 11th, 2008 with no comments.
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In good news for both Apple and Carphone Warehouse, Financial Times is reporting that Carphone’s shares rose on FTSE 100 past Friday despite most of the other shares ending the day in negative.
Carphone Warehouse is of course one of two UK Apple iPhone distributors, and its shares rise is attributed due to traders’ belief that the device has been “selling like hot cakes” over the Christmas — although the official sales stats were not released as of yet.
Financial Times is quoting Steve Clayton, analyst at Mirabaud Securities, who stated that there was “fantastic consumer response” to the iPhone, while noting that it’s a “sufficiently innovative product to be assured of selling well, especially in an exclusivity situation“.
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Written by dennis on January 6th, 2008 with no comments.
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French Apple iPhone distributor Orange yesterday announced having sold 70,000 iPhones in the month following iPhone’s French launch on November 29 2007, with 48% of buyers opening a new line with Orange.
82% of all iPhone owners that use Orange subscribe to Orange’s special “Orange for iPhone” plan packages that allow for unlimited data transfer and range in costs from 49 to 119 Euros.
Nevertheless, these 70,000 sales show only a limited degree of success for Orange, as the company earlier announced targets of 50,000 to 100,000 sold iPhones for this first month.
Although in good news for the company it reports that less than 3,500 (5%) of these units were sold (really) unlocked, as compared to previous estimates of 20%.
Thanks: Challenges.fr
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Written by dennis on January 4th, 2008 with no comments.
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