UK iPhone 3G Pricing : o2 on a Winner?
UPDATE: I spoke to a very helpful member of staff in the Headingley, Leeds o2 store today, who confirmed that existing customers will get same prices as new customers but will need to get the iPhone 3G online, you need to go to www.o2.co.uk/iphone and register your interest. He also said he’s hoping we’ll get the units on the day via courier, sweet!
As Chris has already reported Apple have announced the 2nd version of the iPhone, the iPhone 3G, which will be available in 22 countries on July 11th and of course the UK is one of those 22, I know some of our UK readers will be saying ‘about time we got something at the same time as the US!’
What I want to do in this post is look at what o2 are offering in terms of the iPhone 3G pricing and their contracts, as yet we don’t know any confirmed information about the Pay & Go offering but rest asured we’ll bring you the news as soon as we know!
o2 have been very clear on their website in relation to their pricing stratergy for their pay monthly customers, as you can see below. These are very reasonable prices for the device and clearly shows that the new iPhone 3g is indeed being subsidised by the network, which in turn leads me to believe the Pay & Go price for the device will be far above the $199 that Steve announced at the WWDC Keynote.
There really are two things to note here, the first being the addition of a new ‘basic’ tariff, clearly designed for people who only care about the data side of the iPhone, since all these plans include unlimited 3g / EDGE and WiFi usage (rumoured to soon include BTOpenZone hotspots, oh joy iPhone havens at McDonalds!)
Secondly, the handset prices for customers on the £45 or £75 tariffs are fantastic (although of course £75 would pay for a 16gb iPhone 3G within 2 months!) The great news is that o2 say their existing iPhone customers will be able to upgrade without having to pay any contract release feeds meaning that anyone on a £45 / £75 contract with their current iPhone can get the 8gb unit for free and £45 tariff customers only need to pay £59 for an upgrade to the 16gb model.
The only downside for existing iPhone customers being that the o2 site states that ‘This early upgrade offer is only available on o2 online’ which means we won’t be queuing at our local o2 or Carphone Warehouse stores to get the phone, but it also says ‘be one of the first to get your hands on the new iPhone’ Does this mean we’ll see the iPhone on July 11th deliverred to our door? As yet we don’t know, o2 simply ask customers to register their interest to receive updates.
As an exisitng iPhone customer with o2 I’m incredibly happy about this pricing deal and am pleased to see o2 haven’t taken the same tact as AT&T have with our American friends by increasing the tariff pricing to compensate for the lower price.
You lucky Englishmen.
That’s good news for existing customers Stu, but what about us new customers?
Picture the scene at an average O2 store on July 11th …
Let’s say they have 4 staff & a manager. Now even if the manager helps, if it’s going to take ‘about 10 minutes’ to sign you up & activate your new phone ( and that’s being generous ) that would mean they could serve 30 people per hour – an 8 hour day, assuming they would be too greedy for the commission to stop for lunch – and you’re looking at a maximum of 270 people with a working iPhone per day.
Now they are British, so they’ll want their breaks, so let’s say 7 working hours, that gives 210 customers.
No way in the world will it take just 10 minutes though – multiply the number of O2 shops by all those calls to get approval for your iPhone, and you’ll cause a callcentre meltdown!
Even if it only took 20 mins, that would mean a paltry 15 people in an hour – and let’s be realistic – no way is the manager going to dirty their hands by talking to the public…
So, by those figures, you are looking at each store averaging 84 Happy iPhone customers per day – how many UN-Happy ones does that equate too?
I have a feeling this iPhone launch is going to make the news for all the WRONG reasons! How about you?
O2 is spelt incorrectly on this post… tut tut… Capital O
Actually Chris, the o2 branding is a lower case o not an upper case O
Rob
As far as I was aware the store activation rule was only for the US, but I have seen a few blog posts today that suggest otherwise.
I agree with you it won’t be fun, but in the words of Leo Laporte ‘it’s about the community’