Got a tip for us? Share it...
• • RSS

iPhone UK Sales Reach 1 Million Mark

Thursday February 26, 2009 10:02 am PST by Eric Slivka
As part of an earnings release covering the fourth quarter of 2008, Telefnica Europe announced that their O2 subsidiary in the UK has now sold over one million iPhones since the launch of the original iPhone in November 2007.

O2 pointed to the iPhone as one of the key components driving its performance, which was significantly better than the overall UK wireless market in all main financial and operating metrics. In particular, O2 highlighted the growth of its prepay segment, driven in part by the addition of prepaid iPhone offerings late in the quarter.
[ 51 comments ]

Top Rated Comments

(View all)

Avatar
big_malk
Posted: 42 months ago
Anyone know what the figures are for the whole UK mobile market to get some perspective on that?
I had a wee Google for it but couldn't find anything.

First post :)
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
yetanotherdave
Posted: 42 months ago
To put it in some perspective, there are 60m people in the UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk one iPhone sold for every 60 people in the UK. That's pretty incredible market penetration - especially when hampered by O2's lousy coverage compared to the like of Vodafone.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
talkingfuture
Posted: 42 months ago

To put it in some perspective, there are 60m people in the UK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk one iPhone sold for every 60 people in the UK. That's pretty incredible market penetration - especially when hampered by O2's lousy coverage compared to the like of Vodafone.


I was just thinking that as I read the article, 1 in 60 is astonishing. I'm getting more tempted to buy one every day.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
elppa
Posted: 42 months ago
1.6% of the UK population.

Not too bad.

Reminded me of when other operators bad mouthed O2 and Matthew Key for signing the Apple deal:

One rival even claimed O2 had struck a ''madly money- losing" deal. When I ask Key, a former accountant and finance director of O2 UK, about that comment, he snorts, pauses, and deadpans: ''It's sour grapes. We don't sign bad deals."


http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
OllyW
Posted: 42 months ago

Anyone know what the figures are for the whole UK mobile market to get some perspective on that?
I had a wee Google for it but couldn't find anything.

First post :)


Does this help?

In 2007, the UK had a 116% market saturation, 70 million mobile phones from a population of 61 million.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
elppa
Posted: 42 months ago

Does this help?

In 2007, the UK had a 116% market saturation, 70 million mobile phones from a population of 61 million.


Amazingly, that figure is beaten by three countries: Germany, Italy and Russia.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
kdarling
Posted: 42 months ago
We have to factor in that the sales number counts the original model as well.

In the US, at least, quite a few of the 3G sales were to original owners. In other words, quite a lot of sales were to the same person.

So the percentage by population is less, perhaps much less, than figured above... though still respectable.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
sjo
Posted: 42 months ago

Anyone know what the figures are for the whole UK mobile market to get some perspective on that?
I had a wee Google for it but couldn't find anything.

First post :)


to give you some reference point, nokia n95 was introduced in uk in march 2007, and passed 1m mark on november 2007. so that's about 8-9 months, vs iphone 16 months.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
MATTHEWLONG
Posted: 42 months ago
If only O2 wasnt such a bad network. What percentage were 3g?. Does 2g really count, I was always waiting for 3g.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives
Avatar
elppa
Posted: 42 months ago

We have to factor in that the sales number counts the original model as well.

In the US, at least, quite a few of the 3G sales were to original owners. In other words, quite a lot of sales were to the same person.

So the percentage by population is less, perhaps much less, than figured above... though still respectable.


Particularly as I was calculating it based on a population of 60, not 70 million (which is probably more accurate).

Having said that many 3G upgraders may have passed their phones on and O2 and Apple were actively encouraging this, so the amount sold may be fairly close to the amount in use.
Rating: 0 Positives / 0 Negatives

[ Read All Comments ]