Apple estimates 250,000 iPhones sold to SIM unlockers

“On today’s Apple Q4 earnings call Apple stated that ‘Apple estimates 250,000 iPhones were sold with intention to unlock,’ and that ‘many of those sales happened after the price cut’.” Really? Surprise, surprise. There must still be huge volumes of people who a dying to get hold of one…

(Quote via Engadget.)

Demand for the iPhone continues to amaze me. Now that I actually have one (and there are very few around here in New Zealand) I am constantly asked about it. The question on everyones lips, whether spoken or unspoken, is “and where could I get one?” Of course, New Zealand is a relatively small market, so one can only imagine that the demand would be proportionally larger in the bigger developed markets.

Unfortunately, comments like this do beg the question - Don’t you realise that the world is a very large place? Yes, the US and European markets are massive, but many of the other markets out there can drive significant demand - especially when it comes cellphones…especially paradigm-changing cellphones like the iPhone!

A case-in-point is this blog (TechGripe!). One of the things I’ve noticed in maintaining this blog is that most people appear not to be the slightest bit interested in the ‘under the covers’ IT stuff. In fact, many of the amazing technologies and trends that might make IT Geeks (like myself) go ‘oooh’ and ‘aahhhh’ are obviously simply boring to most people. But, write anything about the likes of Apple’s iPhone, and the hits go berserk!

New consumer technologies like the iPhone are of course dramatically more interesting. Partly because these new devices and their associated interfaces are the ‘touch point’ - the place where humans and technology are forced to meet - and anything that improves that relationship for the average consumer has got to be worth investigating! And the other part is obviously the incredible ‘cool factor’. Say what you will about the iPhone, but some of the interface wizzies (like coverflow, or the pinch-expand gestures) make even the staunchest techies drop their jaws… It definitely has the cool factor!

So, personally I just can’t see the demand for iPhones ’sold with the intention to unlock’ doing anything but heading north! As I’ve always said, Apple will have to sell an unlocked phone in markets where they haven’t negotiated a contractual distribution if they want to stop this. Why they don’t just sell an unlocked model in every market at a significantly higher price is baffling to me. In my mind, it can only be related to pressure from the Telcos…

Originally from TechGripe! by Brett Ryland (23 October 2007).