By Achim Voermanek - Foreign Correspondent
Starting February 1, O2, Apple’s exclusive partner for the iPhone in the UK, will allow significantly more voice calls and text messaging for its existing iPhone customers. With these increases O2 is reacting to low sales numbers in the UK for the iPhone and ongoing criticism regarding its tariff structure for the iPhone and other multimedia cell phones. The improvements are indeed significant: for example users of the entry level package of 35 GBP per month get increases from 200 minutes to 600 minutes voice calls and from 200 to 500 SMS messages.
Sales of the iPhone in the UK so far have been reported as around 190.000 units, slightly below the bottom of the expectations of 200.000 sold units for the first two months.
Germany’s T-Mobile reported sales of around 70.000 iPhones in the first two months since the launch there. Orange in France was more successful with around 70.000 sold units in the first month alone, maybe due to the fact that in France the iPhone is sold as a unlocked device.
This is indeed a significant move on the part of O2. Direct comparison of tariffs available from O2 for other phones - ie Nokia N95 - showed off the iPhone in a very poor light, and anyone who was at all undecided about the iPhone could have been easily persuaded to go elsewhere. These new tariffs make the iPhone so much more attractive, and may well increase sales. Unlocking to other networks at about £100 now gets to be less of an advantage financially and possibly not worth the hassle with all the new upcoming apps on the horizon.
I still think that the big boost will come when the 3G iPhone appears - I’ll be first in the queue - and then we really will have a great phone with attractive tariffs.
This is good news. I managed to use more than my 200 minutes last month, something I never managed to do with other handsets. The iPhone just begs to be used.
The new prices make the iPhone plans more comparable to O2 standard tariffs (e.g. the £45 iPhone tariff is now equivalent to the O2 standard £35 tariff, but you could attribute that extra £10 to the unlimited data plan), *but* what they should *actually* be compared to are the O2 simplicity tariffs (because the phone isn’t subsidised), and they’re still way off on that comparison.
I’m extremely happy because I was on the £55 tariff so i’ve just saved myself £10 a month, but most non-iPhone-owners I know are saying that the distinction between the £35/£45/£55 tariffs wasn’t what was stopping them from buying. It was the fact that the lowest possible tariff was £35 - and this hasn’t changed.
In my opinion they should have introduced a £25 tariff with the same (or even less) minutes and texts than the old £35 tariff. This is what would really bring in more customers. There might not be many people who would actually end up using a £25 package, but to get people into the mindset of considering an iPhone you need that cheap option on the table.