Outrageous Iphone sales figures outed

SOME APPLEPHILES had estimated that sales of the Iphone had reached one million units in the first two days. However, Apple has admitted that only 270,000 devices were actually sold.

More telling is the fact that AT&T (Cingular) only managed to activate about half of them - 146,000, in those first few days. Owners of the rest experienced 'technical problems' before being able to get theirs on air.

Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, revealed that his company was still aiming to shift 10 million Iphones during the course of 2008. He also confirmed that Apple would name its European partners soon and have the product on sale in time for Xmas.

What most observers omit to mention is that sales of its existing Ipods has risen by 21 per cent to 9.8 million units. Which could well be a much more telling figure.

It might well prove the case that Apple fans who like the whole Itunes experience would much prefer to buy a decent music player rather than lumbering themselves with an expensive mobile phone for a couple of years.

The Iphone isn't so much a stroke of genius as a defensive move. Apple had to come up with a music phone because handset manufacturers are eating into its music player business.

Anecdotal evidence points this way. For example, John Forsyth of Symbian recently told the INQ that Symbian employees were free to pick the phone they wanted.

Rather than selecting the phones on the basis of a decent email client, Forsyth had noticed that a significant number selected their phone on how good the MP3 player was and were therefore going for Walkman phones.

Apple might reach its 2008 target but it's going to be a tougher fight than most people have predicted. µ