It may just be a phone but the hype created around iPhone made it one of the most cherished products, at least in the US. The moment Steve Jobs? iPhone went on sale on Friday evening, shoppers in the US snapped it up.
At Apple?s store in New York?s SoHo neighborhood, fans counted down the minutes and then the seconds as employees arranged life-sized iPhone displays. In other parts of the country, people drove from out-of-state for the handset or waited at local malls for hours to be sure to get one, reports Bloomberg.
In India, Apple?s Bangalore office got over 14,000 queries in the last few weeks. Hot Spot CEO Sanjiv Mahajan said their each store was getting around 1,000 inquiries every day.
?Like in many product categories, there are early adapters who want to be seen with latest cellphones. However, the smart-phone customer is also aware that the phone has initially been launched in the US and therefore we don?t have any serious enquiries,? said Sunil Bhagat, CEO, RPG Cellucom, and agreed a Mobilestore spokesperson.
While iPhone didn?t excite Nimbus CEO Harish Thawani, MakeMyTrip CEO Deep Kalra will ?wait and watch? before taking the plunge. Motorola marketing director Lloyd Mathias said iPhone would sell in a niche segment.