Remember those surprisingly low first week sales figures for the Nexus One? They’re about to look even smaller…
Vodafone UK launched the iPhone today. While you might think that being the fourth network in the UK to begin selling Apple’s iconic handset might mean that demand would be low, that’s not the case. The network has told Mobile Industry Review that preorders hit an astounding 50,000 units before launch.
Yes, the fourth network to start selling the iPhone in the tiny country that is the UK beat Google’s first-week sales by two-and-a-half times in one day.
Of course, it’s worth remembering that Google has a number of factors against it right now. The Nexus One is only available at a discounted price on T-Mobile USA or full price unlocked. Add to that the facts that Google will only ship the phone to four countries and that many people will be put off buying a phone direct from a website without seeing it and it’s clear the Nexus One hardly had a ‘normal’ launch.
If Google had built up demand with a pre-order period for the Nexus One the gap may have been small. Still, we’re sure there will be champagne corks popping at Vodafone’s UK HQ today.
Tiny country? World’s sixth largest economy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29
It’s still a tiny country, lol.
Agreed, a ‘tiny country’???
Also the Nexus One was hardly ‘worldwide’. It launched in 4 countries on one carrier, a US carrier might I add.
Vodafone has allowed pre orders for about a month not just 1 day , see what nexus one orders are like by end of the month. Then compare.
And vodafone has allowed pre-orders for over a month, 50.000 is not all in one day .
Liam, pre-orders are often counted towards first day sales so my statement stands – also I did point out in the article that a pre-order period would have helped Google.
Very misleading title.
Google’s Nexus is not available worldwide – I for one would have ordered one if I could have. Just go to the Google mobile blog and see the many comments about people saying they cant get it..
Pre-orders have been ongoing for sometime with Vodafone too. I love this website, but please, ensure we have accuracy not hyperbolae.
That said, I’m surprised by the volume of people buying an iPhone 3GS now. I think buying an iPhone 3GS at this stage of the product cycle is a shame. The technology is now looking weaker than the competition. I’d wait until the fourth iteration.
I know of about 5 people in my office who have been hanging on the promise of a FREE iPhone for months now, so it’s hardly surprising that a backlog of customers for an established (and heavily advertised) product is larger then a surprise launch and zero advertising.
If I could purchase it without a having a unknown potentially high tax for importing I’d definitely consider it and if I could get it subsidised on any provider in the UK I’d sign up tomorrow.
Plus, in Europe we’re expecting to get multi touch, which in all honesty is a cheesy gimmick but might as well get it for the sake of waiting a few weeks.
Thing is, if we were to import one and multitouch then came out when it was released on vodafone surely we could enable multitouch via some sort of firmware update or something? It might be a gimmick but being an iphone 3gs owner i would really like it. Its a standard feature which should be available in a phone of this quality IMO.
Also I saw someone complaining about the quality of the touch, can anyone shed any light on this?
Well I’m one of the 20,000 and I can confirm that it does have multi-touch if you download the Dolphin Browser from the marketplace. But actually having tried it I’ve decided to stick with the native browser because you can zoom one handed. But either way it’s great to have a choice.