Apple's new 3G iPhone in short supply
Thursday 10 Jul 2008
The much awaited release of the
3G Apple iPhone looks set to be a huge disappointment to its loyal users. O2 is suffering a stock shortage the day it’s due to be released (today) and it is anticipated that only a handful of Apple iPhone’s will arrive at its stores.
O2 has gone as far as posting a
warning on its website warning customers that their stores will only have a few dozen handsets on average and even those will sell like hot cakes.
Oxford Street branches received 1000 each for the launch of the 2G iPhone but have only received just over 100 of the
3G iPhone with other stores expected to receive as few as five devices.
One O2 member of staff said that the number of handsets being sent to them was “ridiculously low”. The staff member went on further to say: “This is ludicrous. My store is getting less than twenty devices, nowhere near enough. Last year it went like clockwork. This year it’s a mess.”
O2 advised that they are working very closely with Apple to obtain additional handsets and they are expecting them to arrive on a week by week basis.
At the start of the week, such was the O2 website traffic to pre-order the 3G iPhone, the site crashed.
O2 decided to create 2 avenues to pre-order the new iPhone. They split the orders between existing upgrading customers and new customers. However, within two hours they had sold out of stock and all sales were to new customers. This has angered existing customers, some of which feel let down by O2 for not showing any loyalty to them.