iPhone's European debut muted

Stephen Withers
Monday, 12 November 2007 06:10

Your IT - Mobility

Reports from Europe suggest sales of Apple's iPhone got off to a good but not spectacular start on Friday. November weather in the UK and Europe is not conducive to queuing outside stores, but several hundred lined up in London's Regent Street.

Photos published by AppleInsider suggest there may have been almost as many staff, media and other hangers-on present at the London Store as there were customers. Anyone not wearing or carrying a coat is unlikely to be a customer.

The two-iPhone limit was in force, but Apple waived its self-imposed 'credit card only' rule and accepted cash payments as a first-day special. That was probably a good idea - think of the bad publicity if the one of the first few people in the queue had been denied an iPhone in front of all that media.

According to Scotland on Sunday, Friday night sales peaked at 4.2 per second, but that doesn't give any real clue to the number of units shifted.

In Germany, T-Mobile officials said more than 10,000 iPhones were sold on Friday. No figures have been released for the UK, and O2 has reportedly stated that it will not be revealing first-day sales figures.

Apple vice president of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller was present for the London festivities.

Late last week, T-Mobile CEO Rene Obermann said demand could outstrip supply during the run up to Christmas, but the company later stated that it was well prepared to meed high demand for the handset.

There have been no reports of a repeat of the activation problems that plagued a proportion of first-weekend buyers when the iphone went on sale in the US earlier this year.