Apple optimistic it will sell 10 million iPhones by year's end

Irish debut, announced today, will help

By Tony Smith, 28th February 2008

Updated Apple is "really confident" it will sell 10m iPhones by the end of the year, the company's COO, Tim Cook, said yesterday. Today, O2 announced the phone's launch in Ireland.

Cook was speaking at a Goldman Sachs investment conference and his comments came on the day Apple invited analysts to a meeting to be held next week at which it will unveil its iPhone applications roadmap and the handset's software development kit.

Interestingly, the event's invite also indicates Apple will be discussing its plans to pitch the iPhone at big business, a sign it reckons it can take the fight to Windows Mobile and the BlackBerry. Push email, anyone?

Ramping sales to corporates isn't going to significantly impact Apple achieve its short-term aim of selling 10m iPhones by the end of December. O2's Irish launch, which will place on 14 March, should do. The carrier announced it will offer the 8GB handset for €399 and the 16GB version for €499, with the €45-100 monthly tarrif on top of that.

The Telefónica subsidiary won the UK iPhone contract in September 2007, and with its firm presence in Ireland, it was a strong candidate for the Irish roll-out too.

Market watchers have calculated that around a quarter of iPhones sold so far have been unlocked in order to be used with other carriers than the Apple-sanctioned ones. While that's not good for Apple's tariff revenue-sharing deals, it does at least mean that it's selling handsets that count toward that 10m total.

This week, Apple released version 1.1.4 of the iPhone OS.

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Posted Tuesday 4th March 2008 21:42 GMT

Ivan Headache

@nick

"Well, thats the sort of atitude that pushes the difference between the average fanboy and people actually in the know."

I really do not understand what you mean.

You state that you you only know of 1 person (in the thousands you deal with on a daily basis) that has an iPhone - and they don't like it.

I state that I know 2 people that have iPhones (out of ALL the people I know) and they both say it is the best phone they have ever owned. - Now that (in your words) is from "someone in the know" - someone who has actually bought the phone, used the phone and and decided how it compares to the other phones they have owned.

As I said, I haven't got an iPhone (how does that make me a fanboy?), I have a nokia something-or-other (which is the worst phone I have ever owned), and I don't do txting because it's much easier to talk - which (for me) is what having a mobile phone is all about.

Posted Friday 29th February 2008 21:12 GMT

Nick Mallard

Ivan

Well, thats the sort of atitude that pushes the difference between the average fanboy and people actually in the know.

I'd rather hear valued opinions from more sensible folks such as Chad H. I agree - lots of people are jumping on the bandwagon and rightly so. Apple are usually right up there with ideas - they're just rarely implemented too well.

But for further information - I'm also writing this on my Sony. Doesn't take long, the handwriting recognition is a godsend. I've never been a fan of short txt msging 4 kids and prefer a good, properly written sentence. Ok, point taken; writing like I do ;)

Posted Friday 29th February 2008 06:58 GMT

Chad H.

@ nick

as an iPhone lover, I'll freely admit, this is not a phone for everyone.

If you want the best phone for the mobile web, there is no better phone. There are faster phones, but no better.

If you want some other feature, with perhaps the exception of the music player, there are better phones... The blackberry is currently best of class in email, those buggy crappy windows mobile attrosities are best in class at syncing PIM data, and it can't do mms (why send a costly mms if email is free?).

If the iPhone is such a non event, why is every other phone manufacturer trying to match it.

Maybe the iPhone is a phone thats using old tech, but this is the phone everyone else should have released years ago, if they did, 3g services would have taken off like the marketing goons promised, because people would see a point( yes i know the iPhone isn't 3g, but it would have made mobile data seem worthwhile)

Just as evidence as to how good the iPhone is for web, this whole reply is typed on one, on the train... Let's see you type something this long onto a comments page using your Sony...