19 million Americans have "strong interest" in buying iPhone

Stephen Withers
Monday, 18 June 2007 11:02

Your IT - Mobility

Market research firm M:Metrics has found 14 percent of US mobile phone subscribers that are aware of the iPhone express a "strong interest" in buying Apple's forthcoming mobile phone. Extended across the subscriber population, that's over 19 million probable buyers.

"This data confirms that the iPhone has sparked the imaginations of consumers and is not merely a topic of conversation among insiders and technology enthusiasts," said Mark Donovan, senior vice president and senior analyst, M:Metrics.

"19 million Americans reported strong interest in purchasing an iPhone - an impressive figure, when you consider that the installed base of most high-end devices rarely approaches one million and respondents were informed of the price point [$US499 or $US599] as well as of the AT&T exclusive."

Given that Apple only expected to sell 10 million iPhones in 18 months, this must be reassuring for the company as it attempts to move into a new market.

There's some additional good news for AT&T: 67 percent of those most inclined to buy an iPhone are currently subscribers of other cellular networks.

The company reports even greater interest in the UK. Even though the launch date for Europe has not been announced and there is no indication of which carrier Apple will partner with, 28 percent of iPhone aware mobile subscribers expressed strong interest in buying.

"We expected that mobile users in the UK would be more inclined to buy an expensive device, since smartphones are twice as popular in the UK as in the US," said Paul Goode, vice president and senior analyst, from M:Metrics' London office.

Despite seemingly saturation media coverage, only 56 percent of UK and 64 percent of US mobile users are aware of the iPhone - but that's pretty good at this stage, according to M:Metrics. The credibility of the survey is helped by a substantial sample size: 11,060 in the US and 5293 in the UK.

The iPhone is set to go on sale in the US on June 29.