Update: 15% of iPhones were sold on non-iPhone specific service plans, while 5% were sold unlocked
Orange, who are Apple's carrier partner in France, have revealed that of the 30,000 iPhones the sold in the first five days it was on sale there, 1,500 were unlocked. While 80% of customers took out one of the carrier's special iPhone plans, 15% chose a more generic option and paid €549 for the privilege.
The iPhone retails for €399 ($587) with a two-year contract or €749 ($1100) unlocked. French law demands that any new phone being sold in the country must also be available SIM-unlocked.
Orange also reported that 48-percent of those buying the iPhone were new to the network, though it's not known how many of those chose to stay with them and how many were "false positives" who merely bought an unlocked handset.
Only 5% of the iphones sold in France were without any contract.
80% of the iphones sold in France were sold with a “iphone specific” contract.
The remaining 15% of the iphones were sold with an ordinary normal Orange contract.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120500914.html
….and the guessing and stats game continues.
So according to the Washington Post via Sande, only 5% were truly unlocked for use on other networks.
Regardless, I think Apple well knows that people want to buy it unlocked, but it plans to take advantage of its popularity for all its worth – namely, helping a carrier partner acquire new subscribers in exchange for a share of revenue and more importantly, other concessions (in activation, service, branding, unlimited data plan at a reasonable price, etc). The goal of Apple is to change carrier industry practices and open it up to the whole Web, not just a few extra dollars. Eventually when 3G or 4G arrives and the carriers are able to handle greater amounts of data traffic, I believe Apple will trade their share of revenue for other concessions – such as iChat and iTunes use. Leaving those who use it unlocked on other networks still blocked from use of these applications.
Did you even read the article at BBC that you linked to ?
” About 80% of the phones were sold for 399 euros on a special Orange tariff plan, with 15% sold for 549 euros on a regular Orange tariff plan.
The rest were sold for 649 euros. For 100 euros extra, these can be unlocked. ”
So , about 28500 French customers bought a locked phone and tariff paln and about 1500 bought an unlocked phone .. the only news here is that Apple and their selected carriers are raking in the money ..
Thanks for the feedback, guys – guess my brain decided to take a vacation!
Hello there, just stopped by doing some research for my Washington 4g website. Lots of information out there. Wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but interesting page. Have a nice day.