iPhones sell like crepes suzette in France
The British and the Germans queued up dutifully for their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, but when the devices finally arrived in Paris last week, the French went nuts.
On day one, France Telecom's Orange division sold 12,000 iPhones, according to Metro International, easily beating T-Mobile's first-day sales in Germany, a country with one third more people (82 million vs. 61 million) and 50 percent more Internet users (52 million vs. 34 million) (stats). After just 21 hours, 17 percent of Orange France stores had sold out, according to O'Grady's Powerpage.
And today, France Telecom announced that it sold nearly 30,000 iPhones in the first five days, 48 percent of them to new customers (link). That's nearly one iPhone for every 2,000 Frenchmen (and women). In the United States, Apple and AT&T sold 270,000 iPhones in that first frenzied weekend last June, or one for every 1,111 Americans.
Yesterday, a German court overturned the temporary injunction that had forced T-Mobile to offer its customers the option of buying iPhones unlocked. France is once again the only country where users can buy the phones without a contract that ties them to a particular carrier, although France Telecom reports that only 2 out of 10 French buyers paid the 100 euro ($147) fee to have their iPhones unlocked. (See Paris: City of unlocked iPhones.)
Below the fold: iPhone frenzy, Parisian style, courtesy of YouTube.
In France, the price difference between iPhone with Orange contract and unlocked iPhone is more than 100 eur.
With contract 399 eur
unlocked 749 eur
ex ped: 100 euros is the cost of unlocking. You pay extra to get the phone without a contract. Here's the price schedule:
* 749 euros ($1,109) unlocked iPhone, no contract
* 649 euros ($956) locked iPhone, no contract
* 549 euros ($809) unlocked iPhone, with Orange contract
* 399 euros ($588) locked iPhone, with Orange contract
* 100 euros ($147) to unlock a locked iPhone
–Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Incredible footage of the queues in Paris. It reminds me of queueing for the Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum many years ago, or the hysteria surrounding the release of Buzz Lightyear toys!
By the way, Surely the spelling of crepe suzette is immaterial- the taste is what counts!
I am currently a Treo 650 user and have not yet jumped on the iPhone bandwagon. I want to see how the iPhone performs after a years worth of usage. Does anybody know whether the Jawbone bluetooth head set can be used with the iPhone?
the reason is is that in the uk iPhones come with a 30-50 pound a month for 18 month bill to use it and you have to get it!
but in france the law says they cant do that so u can buy the handset so english people travel via eurostar probz just go to the terminal lol or near by buy an iphone change the language then take it home then put your sim in.
Web sites should avoid specifying the fonts unless absolutely necessary and let browser preferences control them to the greatest extent possible. At the very least, the main content should not specify any font at all and use the font set in the browser.
Hardly anyone seems to care about the content of this article! It seems only to have attracted comments from the web-design police and P.C. bores. As an englishman living in France it's interesting to hear the iPhone doing so well chez les francais. It certainly sounds like it's doing rather better than in my country of origin: could that be because France is (now) the only place you can legitimately buy unlocked iPhones?
As for the critics: I don't know what the old web design of this site was like, but the new one looks fine to me. Perfectly legible, at least on Safari: perhaps it's harder to read on browsers/platforms with more primitive font rendering. Anyway, I'm beginning to get bored with sans-serif fonts: I've always thought Roman fonts looked more sophisticated and don't suffer from the l, I, 1 ambiguity. As display resolutions increase I predict they'll become fashionable for on-screen use too.
iPhones from France to India?? Ha! You can buy unlocked iPhones here in downtown Auckland (yes, New Zealand is a real country!)… they ain't cheap in the local currency, but there is all that extra coolness that comes with the things..
Not sure about the whining about the web page.. I quite like it
The new font used in your blog is the BEST yet!
I agree with your choice.
I can now easily differentiate 1 from I from from l (that's the number ONE from the letter EYE from the letter ELLE), in case the complainers are reading this post).
Plus the serif gives the blog some artistic flair. I'm tired of the modern, bland, SANS serif.
i don't know if it's a w3c standard or not, but it is pretty common and agreed that using a Serif font for web design is horrible. web page should only use Sans-Serif fonts for the main content, Serif fonts should only be used for Headlines or small blocks of text (highlighted quotes, etc.). And using a such a light grey font is a usability (508) compliance issue for those with less than perfect vision. So, it's not a "focus group of one" by Ralph, these are common web site design rules.
the problem with some sites now is they are too busy trying to be "different" and forget about the average reader or usability & readability. you cannot bring Print rules to the Internet, two different mediums with different rules.
Look around the web, very few if any and almost no good news site does what you guys are doing. Why? Because they know better and want their site to be usable by EVERYONE!
I don't get the redesign at all, it was better before. And sorry but the new font really bites. Very difficult to read.
That should be "crêpes Suzette", or ""Crêpes Suzette", and not "crepe suzettes". You've got the plural in the wrong place, plus the "e" is really "ê", as a previous poster pointed out.
ex ped: WordPress chokes on accents circumflex in headlines, but I have no excuse for mispluralizing. Thanks for the catch.
I like the format. You can read all the comments without having to open each one individually. Much faster to browse comments.
"crêpes", not "crepes" 
ex ped: I know, but given that WordPress has trouble handling even double quotes in headlines, I didn't dare try the accent.
The French love our culture not our politics. Great for Apple and us!
What's with all the ped bashing…. I thought this article was unbiased. I'm a Mac fan from day one, lets get over the petty crap guys.
have to agree, the new layout ain't good.
and times roman? thats an unwelcome trip down memory lane.
so no Frenchwomen buying?
ex ped: You caught me thinking like the French. Politically correct American parenthetical added.
I agree with ralph. This is a horrible redesin and what's with the Browser Blog headlines still appearing on the CNN Tech homepage. Those headlines are old and the Browser does not even exist anymore. Get it together.
Your webpage redesign really sucks. Go back to what you had before. Times Roman???
ex ped: A focus group of one.
Apple’s iPhone is too secluded from the mainstream media world. The Gphone makes all media more ubiquitous, and how that ubiquity will impact company profits. That can benefit both consumers and investors. The NewsVisual article on Google’s Open Handset Alliance http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/11/google-and-moto.html implies that it’s really personal connections among business leaders that determine future success in the competitive marketplace. But consumers can also benefit from the new products those alliances spawn.
If the iphones are unlocked in France, then how is the Apople upgrades to the iPhones going to work? The upgrades are what was "bricking" unlocked iPhones in the U.S.
ex ped: Apple has a way to unlock iPhones in an authorized fashion that doesn't lead to bricking. The unlocking guys can't wait to get their hands on it.