BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple iPhone warning proves true

[Peter Korsten]

Andrew Robinson schreef:

> Indeed - I'm not disagreeing with any of this, I'm just saying the 
> pricing structure has to go if it's going to make sense, and I'm also 
> predicting that the device that precipitates the change is going to the 
> the iPhone, when people wake up one day and discover the iVoip app that 
> Apple have dropped onto the existing installed base. 

The iPhone is never going to have that effect. It's too expensive for 
too many people to buy.

> The yes, the iPhone is an expensive phone, but it's not unusually 
> expensive for a mass-market mobile device. It's price is consistent with 
> the launch price of the PSP, and with other high-end ipods, which sell 
> very well. At ?269 it's not cheap, but it's not prohibitively expensive, 
> and Apple's original statement of wanting a 1% market share worldwide in 
> 12 months is looking very conservative, especially in the light of the 
> recent $200 price cut stateside... and that's before the persistent 
> rumours of an iPhone nano are factored in. The iPhone is pricey because 
> it's a 8Gb iPod, and the market will understand that.

It's too expensive for a phone. Most people just want to phone and text. 
Anything more than that (OK, taking photos as well) is extra, and not 
used by the vast majority of mobile users.

> 164% penetration strikes me as meaningless. I own 3 mobile phones... I 
> sony-ericsson that's dying, 1 nokia communicator that I keep for 
> nostalgia's sake (battery life dropped to 15 mins standby, replacement 
> battery price quoted at the time was 350% of the price of the phone) and 
> 1 even more ancient Philips (I think) one that's at the back of a 
> drawer. So, I'm at 300% penetration, and I'll still be in the iPhone 
> queue on day 1.

How many subscriptions do you have? That is what's being counted here. 
Not phones.

> I think his is in Apple's favour. Apple can't drop the lock-in without 
> angering AT&T in the US... but they can simply add new markets for the 
> iPhone until some government somewhere forces network compatibility. 
> This way AT&T can't kick up a fuss when the US market switches to buying 
> unlocked Belgian iPhones.

On a global scale, AT&T Wireless is not much of a player. What the US 
have going for them is the low penetration of mobile phones. Heck, even 
Russia has a higher penetration ratio.

What's cool about AT&T Wireless is that they have *one* system for all 
their customers. Obviously, this is what Vodafone and T-Mobile and all 
the other global players are trying to achieve right now. It will take 
quite a while, though.

> Rightly or wrongly, 3G is viewed as a joke by the public here in the UK. 
> It's tainted with association to the network called 3, and it's 
> hopelessly blocky videophones that didn't take off.

It has nothing to do with how the public at large considers it, but the 
people who are likely to buy an expensive phone. Buying an expensive 
phone without 3G is, let's put it, strange. High-end users want 
features, whether they will be using them or not.

> Apple are aiming for a 1% market share for the iPhone in 2008. That's a 
> long way short of the 50%+ they have in the large-capacity portable 
> media player market with the iPod, so nobdy expects iPod-like dominance, 
> that's not a good yardstick to measure it by.

This would mean like 3 million users in western Europe. I think it's 
very optimistic.

- Peter