The iPhone and the British and German phone markets
Tomorrow sees the iPhone being unleashed on British and German markets four months after its US debut. It'll be interesting to see how it's received.
Price is quite a bit higher is Europe compared to the US. In the US the 8GB iPhone will retail for $566, while in Germany the cost will be $587, both significantly higher than the $399 that it retails for in the US. Both O2 and Deutsche Telekom will require customers to sign up to a lengthy contract period. In the UK contracts start at around $70 a month.
It's going to be interesting to see how the iPhone plays out in Europe and there are several factors against it. First is the price, in Europe many people expect a high-end phone to be thrown into the deal in exchange for taking out a contract. Another is lack of features. No MMS support and no 3G support makes it hard to either network operator to class this handset as high-end. Then there's the price. My guess is that sales will be strong in the run up to Christmas (although nowhere near as strong as in the US) and that afterwards things will tail off.
Thoughts?