Best Buy to take on iPhone

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 13 August 2008 07:55

Your IT - Mobility

It may sound odd to our Australian and European readers, but the Americans are getting excited about the prospect of being able to buy iPhones from stores other than those operated by Apple or AT&T. Best Buy has announced it will start selling the popular handset on September 7.

In Australia, a variety of mobile phone franchises sell the iPhone on behalf of carriers such as Optus. And in the UK, Carphone Warehouse was appointed to sell the iPhone alongside carrier O2's own stores.

But so far, US buyers have been given the choice of Apple Stores or AT&T stores. From next month the iPhone will be available from almost 1000 Best Buy store around the country. This will come close to doubling the number of outlets where the handset can be purchased.

Interestingly, the Best Buy Mobile operation is a 50:50 joint venture with Carphone Warehouse. That operation also involves more than 2400 Carphone Warehouse and Phone House stores in Europe.

The expansion in the number of US outlets suggests Apple is starting to get supply and demand for the iPhone into balance, although a phone store I pass regularly has had a "sorry, no iPhones today" sign on seemingly permanent display since July 11.

But even if that's not the case and supplies are still tight, increasing the number of outlets may spread the load on stores caused by the time-consuming signup process.

Best Buy already sells Macs and iPods at many of its stores.