O2 sees "unprecedented" demand for iPhone 3G

Completely sold out within hours

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NEWS: 7 July 2008 18:04 GMT by Amy-Mae Elliott

O2 has sent out an email to the UK press stating that it has seen "unprecedented" demand for the iPhone 3G. The company says "demand for the revolutionary device is already at unprecedented levels, far in excess of the original iPhone".

The press release details the events of the day, from O2's point of view: "This morning customers who had pre-registered their interest in iPhone 3G were given the opportunity to purchase via O2’s online shop, a limited stock of devices which had been set aside".

"The response was so great that the online store completely sold out of iPhone 3Gs within just a few hours. Though O2 had invested several million pounds to increase the order capacity of the site (with order processing capacity increased by over 250 times its normal rate), at times the site still couldn’t process the sheer weight of demand."

O2 says details of when new supplies of iPhone 3Gs will be available via the O2 online shop will be updated regularly via the website.

"We’ve never seen any mobile device create the excitement and demand of the iPhone 3G", said Ronan Dunne, CEO of O2 in the UK.

"We want to ensure that everyone who wants an iPhone 3G can get one so we’ll be working with Apple to continually replenish our supplies throughout the summer."

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Have Your Say

But what about the activation issue? Ever since the phone was announced, all the news has said that all phones must be activated in store but O2 say you can activate them online. It seems strange that no articles have picked up on this. AT & T still say instore activation only.
Mat, UK
The web site simply didn't work; at least 95% of attempts to order were cut off by another crash, yet a few orders were still getting accepted at 13:00. I received seventeen "upgrade code" texts during the morning, but none of them got past choosing 8/16GB and tariff. The site must have been rebooted hundreds of times during the morning.
sleepy, uk
O2 dont give two hoots about their site crashing, nor do they care that current iphone owners got totally stuffed when the upgrade site crashed and burned whilst new customers simply sailed through the process to lap up what must have been pitifully meager supplies indeed.

But then, what's a few thousand disgruntled early adopters when you got exclusivity on a device millions are likely to want.

They just succeeded in peeing off their loyal customers in pretty much the same way Apple did in the states when they dramatically reduced the price shortly after launch.

Roll on multiple carriers of iPhone here in the UK. The day will come, particularly since O2 couldn't organise a knees up in brewery!

I hope Apple bite them on the butt for this.
josho, UK