Orange France iPhone total hits 90,000

Orange has sold 90,000 iPhones since releasing the handset to French buyers in November 2007, the carrier's parent, France Telecom, told reporters yesterday. It said half of that total were customers who'd come to Orange from other networks. Yet, the France Telecom president Didier Lombard did admit that he'd have preferred …

[AJ]

More Customers If...

... The phones were available in the UK on all networks other than O2, and phones were discounted on top service plans!

Customers in the UK & EU dont take to kindly to being told which network they have to sign up for and being ripped off by paying over the odds for the phone then a stupid contract amount for crap plans!

We are sometimes daft but we are not that daft, If could get the phone for £200 on T-Mobiles FLEXT 35, or £150 on T-Mobiles FLEXT 50 I would buy it straight away. I like many dont mind stumping up some cash for the phone and a decent service plan, but we aint gonna stump up a fortune, not have a choice of network, pay a stupid amount for a crap plan and get bot all for our money...

Any1 else agree?!

[Paul van der Lingen]

from a KOOLAID drinker (did I get that right?)

Roll on HSDPA, larger capacity and the reasons many people are holding back will be gone.

[Steve Evans]

@KOOLAID drinker

And a better camera, with a flash.

And better support for MMS

And a battery you can change without having to loose the phone for a week as it bounces across the globe in a Jiffi bag!

And a lower price!

[Anonymous Coward]

Value is the issue not price of handset

The low sales levels across Europe (remember some thought 400,000 iPhones would be sold in the Uk alone by the end of 2007) show that customers do not think the features and functions are worth £269 or similar in France/Germany. How are Apple going to sustain the 2007 Q4 results now? A 16GB iPhone will not do it. They really need the SDK - but people will have to PAY and PAY for additional features. This may errode further the perceived value of the iPhone!

[Alex Johnson]

AJ No, I don't

AJ - I get that you want a cheaper iPhone. No doubt, in time, you will get one. You obviously know you could buy one right now and unlock it and use it on T-Mo or anyone else. It'll cost you £269 - cheaper than France or German, but more expensive than the US by about £40 (addng sales tax). It is what it is. I do think it's worth saying that you are getting a full iPod in that price too, which despite what Nokia et al would have you believe, outclasses some other mobile in every possible

But why do you then compare the plans to T-Mo's Flext? Flext 35 offers 900 minutes OR 1,800 texts and unlimited weekend minutes for £30. O2 offers 600 minutes AND 500 texts for £35 - and no free weekends, though you can buy that for £7.50. But it also offers UNLIMITED DATA. With an iPhone, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. Oh, you might say, but I can get "web 'n walk" for £37.50. Well a) that's for WAP which bears no comparison with full web browsing and email, and b), that's now more than £35. Add in those free weekends to the iPhone and the price premium is £5/mo. It's hardly a scandal, is it? And you get full web browsing, email, and visual voicemail. Maybe that's worth it to you, maybe it isn't.

Look, I don't for a second suggest the iPhone is cheap and I'm sure they'd sell more if it were (though whether they would make up the revenue in volume I have no idea - you have to assume they don't think they would). But we really have to kill this idea that it is some kind of rip-off. Demonstrably it's not the cheapest deal out there (though it's not the most expensive, either), but who cares? If you want cheap and tacky T-Mobile has lots of offers for you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Steve Evans

You forgot two more details - a phone that isn't made by Apple and isn't called an iPhone. So much scorn has been poured on the iPhone by now I don't see how anyone can pull one out of their pocket without cringing with embarrassment.

[Mike Wharton]

iPhone = 'cool' tax

I grudge that after paying for an iPhone you then are locked to one operator on a shitty tarrif. Then Apple slaps a tenner a month onto the tarrif just to be 'cool' enough to have an iPhone.

Shite.

Im insulted. I hope Jobs realises we are not stupid, we are not slave's to his designers and we will not pay silly money for it.

[Alex Johnson]

Mike Wharton

Demonstrate to me that the tariff is "sh1tty". For unlimitd web browsing, unlimited real email, and visual voicemail I think a small premium is fair enough. You don't. But what are you paying for your uber data-inclusive tariff that makes £35/mo. so wretched? TBH I'm obviously a fanboi and would pay whatever Steve asked me to pay but I keep seeing these comments about what a rip-off it is and I just don't see it. What I do see is people "forgetting" that the iPhone includes unlimited data, and that it offers something a bit better than a walled garden (or a walled garden with a non-obvious gate) of WAP or the "mobiel" internet. I've had a BlackBerry most recently and I know exactly what that means. But as sceptcial as I am, I'm genuinely interested, as I have compared T-Mo tariffs (see above) and BlackBerry O2 tariffs, and find I'm not getting a give away, but in no way am I being ripped off, either. You?

[Anonymous Coward]

Greed is good

The iPhone is an awesome product, but Apple has been way too greedy taking far too much profit.

Sales will dry up in Europe as people hold off in the expectation of 3g and GPS iphone later this year, and thats not good for Apple because competition at the end of the year will start to heat up with the expected arrival of Android phones, which presumably will not be sold in such a restrictive fashion.

The Credit crisis is starting to bite and even the rich don't like to be ripped off. If you pull out an iphone everyone knows how much you have paid and people think, what a sucker!

[zedee]

@Alex Johnson

Tmobile WnW on Flext 35 is what I have on my Nokia E65.

It is full fat internet, not WAP. It is excellent - I've always used the cheapest tariff on whatever network but when this deal runs out I'll be staying. It's also unlimited just like O2 i.e. within reason. I'm a moderate to heavy user and I still only use about 600Mb a month. 1Gb is when they start wondering if you've attached a laptop to it :)

Nokia's Web browser included on their S60 phones is excellent and I would say easier to actually use than Safari on my hipod touch. You can't read text without zooming in every time you change page.

As for email, I use POP to get at my hosted Gmail AFYD, and Emoze to push from work's exchange server.

Jobs because like the touch, he's all gimmick and no trouser.

[Alex Johnson]

@zedee

I stand corrected but Flext 35 with unlimited data it's still £37.50 (on T-Mo's site) for an 18 month contract. So as I was saying I don't see why this makes the iPhone plan the rip off people seem to accuse it of being. £269 for the phone is a lot, but you say you have an iPod touch so you've paid about the same anyway, haven't you? I disagree on ease of use and much prefer full web pages to cut-down versions, but to each his (or her) own.

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone...why

just a thought rather than worry about tarrifs (lot out there nad nearly all available with any handset) why not consider that it's probably not selling in the UK cos you have to buy it, speaking as the owner of a HTC touch with an 8GB card and I was given a free 32" TV too total cost-£35 for the 8gb card!

all the functionality of the iPhone without needing to use iTunes, and it's pocketPC so I can install software and has word, powerpoint and excel (and yes I do use them) and most importantly for an MP3 playing phone stereo Bluetooth so I can use my nice Sony headphones. now I could have gotten an iPhone and restricted myself and paid for the privilidge but I'm not a masochist!

oh and the Halo is ironic as I'm certain the only reason that anyone's shelled out the money is cos it's marginally less embarresing than paying someone to bend you over a barrel and pretend you're Paris Hilton!

[The Sceptic]

The big picture

I think price plans aside my whole reasoning for not going with the iPhone is simply that of the media downloads. From videos to music Apple have been so stringent in recent times about their commission on these types of download that surely they will use the iPhone as a stepping stone to locking users into their over priced media services.

Very simple indeed for me - just like their home computer systems - their restrictions far outweigh any perceived benefits the OS may provide.

I'll wait for the next gen of phone which no doubt will be at least as good and less contractually based.

[Ivan Headache]

@ The Sceptic

I'm just wondering what these restriction on the home computer systems are.

Care to enlighten me. I've not been restricted by anyone other than microsoft.