Don’t worry – Apple hasn’t missed the iPhone sales boat

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 24 May 2008 14:39

Mobility

After 12 months of iPhone hacking, plenty of people have been fervently waiting for version 2.0 with 3G or better, heeding the good advice never to buy version 1.0 of anything – even the amazing iPhone.

iTWire colleague Adam Turner speculated in an article entitled “Has the Aussie iPhone missed the boat?” that Apple may not sell as many iPhones as it intends to down under (and presumably worldwide) because plenty of people will be happy buying second hand 2G iPhones.

Adam’s article goes on to look at the mathematics of iPhone costs, and notes that mobile accessory resellers have been selling plenty of screen protectors and iPhone cases even though the iPhone is still not officially available for sale in Australia.

Of course, Optus and Vodafone have said they will sell the iPhone in Australia “later this year”, and if rumours about AT&T ready to offer the iPhone at a discount if you purchase from AT&T and sign up to a two year contract, the way many competing phones are sold, perhaps Optus and Vodafone will do the same too, further enhancing the iPhone’s desirability.

Despite Apple’s revenue sharing deal with authorised telcos in existing iPhone selling countries, Adam also rightly notes that “every iPhone sale puts money in Apple's pocket, so maybe Cupertino doesn't care where you source your iPhone from.”

Whether Apple cares or not is another question – surely they are greatly enjoying a monthly revenue stream they never had before. And perhaps they are still going to get some kind of monthly revenue stream from all the new telco resellers worldwide, even those competing in the same countries – we don’t yet know.

Adam also notes that he believes the new iPhone will still be a hit in Australia, while noting that second hand iPhones and imported, hacked 3G iPhones will put a dint in official sales, causing Apple to rethink how it does global releases in the future.

The good thing about Apple, so far, is that its firmware updates have improved the iPhone each time, whether through the addition of new features, the fixing of bugs, or both.

Surely this will only continue? Please read on to page 2.