iPhone Rings up the Sales for Vodafone

Vodafone has given a quick demonstration of the power of the iPhone. Despite being forced to put the iconic handsets on sale after, instead of before, Christmas, the UK mobile operator has still managed to rack up sales of 50,000 of the Apple handsets on the first day of trading.

Certainly the queues outside many of Vodafone's 400 UK retail outlets must have been a reassuring sight for the company's top brass, who may have feared that the market for iPhones had already been largely mopped up by rival network operators. According to Guy Laurence, Vodafone UK's CEO, the company saw "exceptional demand" for the iPhone.

In fact, the Vodafone press office could jubilantly point out that first day sales at its stores were better than those reported by Orange when it launched the iPhone in the UK last year. The France Telecom-owned mobile company only managed to shift 30,000 Apple handsets on launch day, 20,000 fewer than Vodafone did. The other potentially major player to start selling the iPhone recently has been supermarket chain Tesco, but it has resolutely refused to divulge any sales figures so far.

Shortly after Orange had announced, in 2009, that it had managed to sign a deal with Apple allowing it to break rival O2's exclusive iPhone deal in the UK, Vodafone had leapt straight in to secure a deal with the pc-maker turned handset manufacturer. The mobile giant had feared it would see many customers defecting to Orange or even to Tesco.

Vodafone's pricing plans are broadly similar to its rivals with some limited incentives. All Vodafone monthly iPhone tariffs last either 18 or 24 months and come with unlimited texts with a starting cost of £35 per month for the iPhone 3G and 16 GB 3GS version for £45 per month. This puts the value of the whole contract around £15 higher than Orange and O2's versions. Tesco do not apparently offer an 18 month contract.