iPhone is boys’ toy. Official

Rating: M:metrics has done the
profiling
by Tony Dennis

Although M:metrics‘ Paul Goode
would probably be the last person to admit it, his company’s research in
advance of the impending iPhone release into Europe
shows that the predominant purchasers of Apple’s iPhone will be male and high
earners.
The main problem with the company’s iPhone’s stats is that they provide the
authors with a very bad case of schizophrenia. On the one hand they paint a
very bad picture for the iPhone’s appeal in Europe.
On the other, they show that Apple could make a very serious dent in the
smartphone sector’s current status quo.

In essence, what we’ve suspected all along should prove to be true. Those with
more money than sense and attracted to the Apple brand will buy into the iPhone
concept in Europe.
What factors will you ignore if you purchase an iPhone? Well, chiefly that you’ve
just signed an 18 month contract with O2 in order to get your hands on Apple’s
finest cellular gear.
But as a smartphone it’s already six months out of date. This failing is mostly
in terms of throughput speed. One third of those expressing an interest in the
iPhone would be downgrading from a 3G handset.
The camera is also only 2 megapixels and so around 15 per cent of potential
customers will be downgrading their handset’s camera capability.
The trouble is that consumers are likely to ignore all of this and Goode
believes that Apple might well achieve its objective of selling 10 million
units in 12 months.
Which wouldn’t put it amongst the top ten vendors but would certain shove it
right to the top of the smartphone vendors’ league.
But the crucial point is that M:metrics’ US based has showed that 90 per cent of
iPhone owners have browsed the mobile internet compared to an average of 10 per
cent.
Which means that O2, Orange and T-Mobile will do quite nicely out of selling the iPhone. Just think of all
that content that’ll get consumed.

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