iPhone Continues To Make Big Impact – 3G iPhones May Debut This Summer
O2, the iPhone mobile service provider in the UK, announced that the iPhone is the fastest selling device it’s ever sold. Net Applications also announced that the iPhone is now the fourth-largest online browsing platform, a significant achievement.
During a press conference to reveal its fourth quarter financial results, Matthew Key, CEO of Telefonica Europe stated “In the UK, we outperformed the market again, posting like for like revenue growth of 9.5% for the year, above the top end of our guidance range. The UK added 483,000 net customers in the quarter including 276,000 on contract, the highest number ever, helped by sales of the iPhone, the fastest selling device that we have ever had in the UK.” The iPhone launched in the UK on November 9, 2007, and will begin offering the iPhone in Ireland on March 14.
Net Applications revealed that according to its figures the iPhone has become the world’s fourth-largest online browsing platform. For February 2008, the various versions of Windows held nearly 92% market share, followed by the Mac with ~7.5%, Linux with 0.65%, and iPhone, with 0.14% — up 0.01% from January. These numbers indicate that in under a year, the iPhone as a browsing platform is ahead of Windows Mobile, Symbian Series 60, and the popular T-Mobile Sidekick. Interestingly, the iPod touch retained its 0.04% share of the market, but now lies just 0.02% behind Windows Mobile, and when combined with the iPhone, the “mobile OS X†platform holds 0.18% share of the market.
In other speculation news, UBS analysts informed their customers that German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG will “most likely provide the chips” for Apple’s upcoming 3G iPhone, which they state should bow mid-year. This was also confirmed by AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson who revealed that a 3G-capable iPhone model will be released in 2008.
