Telstra Vodafone and Optus will get less than 80,000 3G Apple iPhones to sell between them from July 11th with sold out signs set to go up within minutes of the new phones going on sale. Australia and New Zealand will be two of the first Countries in the world to see the new devices.
One major carrier said “There is not enough to go round and each carrier could have less than 25,000 units for sale on July 11th”
Apple Marketing Manager Rob Small Said “Stock is tight but we will have enough to launch the product. Friday will be a lot of fun”.
A Vodafone executive who did not want to be named said “We will have next to nothing in allocation and what we have will be snapped up within minutes”.
In several countries consumers are already camping out in the expectation of getting their hands on one of the new devises, already user interest has caused two iPhone sites to crash, in the U.K. and in New Zealand.
The iPhone 3G hype has already caused a commotion online. Vodafone New Zealand shut down its site Tuesday after the site was flooded with inquiries. Callers were told to wait until Friday.
Telstra’s iPhone 3G plans start at $30 monthly for two years, with an upfront cost of $279 for an iPhone with 8GB of memory or $399 upfront for a 16GB model.
That will mean customers shell out a total of $999 over two years for the 8GB model – $1119 for the larger memory version.
Or you can pay zilch upfront and $80 monthly for an 8GB iPhone or $100 monthly for the 16GB model. Although not out of pocket at the start, you would end up paying about twice as much on these plans – $1920 for the 8GB model, $2400 for the 16GB version.
