8,000 iPhones Sold in the UK on First Day

The big question on just how great Apple's iPhone did on its European release has been answered by some official figures. O2 reported 8,000 such handsets to have been sold on the first night of sales. What happened to the "tens of thousands" of sold iPhones?

T-Mobile offered an estimated figure of 10,000 such handsets to have been sold on the first day of Apple's phone on German ground. O2, on the other hand, seems to have done not just as good as the other operator, with the high number of 8,000 devices sold on day one. Still, the carrier offered an ambiguous statement that "tens of thousands" iPhones were sold in the UK over the last weekend.

There are low chances for the device to have registered higher sales rates in the following two days than on the first one, which should place their number somewhere below 20,000. That's nowhere near the high sales rate that should have gone well if things had stood the way O2 officials later stated.

O2 offered some "Getting started" leaflets to all people waiting in line outside their stores to buy an iPhone on the release day. The fliers also warned that "if you do not enter into and remain in an airtime agreement with O2 on one of our tariffs for iPhone, you will not be able to use the phone functionality of your phone". There's little to worry on that, as hackers have already managed to break the latest Apple update.

The major issue on the iPhone's UK release has been that of the high price it came for. Some people came in stores only to quench their curiosity, tried the iPhone but left without buying one. The handset is available in Britain for the price of 270 pounds with an 18 months contract.