Apple rogers Rogers
p2pnet news Mobiles | P2P:- Guess how many iPhones Rogers stores will have available to try to sell to Canadians?
10 – 12 each.
Not ten to twelve hundred.
Just 10 to 12.
Period.
The number comes in a post from independent online/offline Canadian marketing and communications consultant Daniel Smith in his Smithereens blog.
July 11 has been mooted as The Day Canadians will be Honoured by being Allowed to Buy iPhones.
Through Rogers.
But only if they agree to sign a three-year contract with the company.
The blatant gouge has been met with universal scorn and derision and Smith bogs:
“Since the announcement, it’s been the main image on their web site, the main focus of their ad campaigns, and according to my source at Rogers, corporate head office even threw some money at their dealership partners (split half-and-half with Apple, apparently) to hire additional part-time staffers to handle the “iPhone rush” for the rest of the summer.”
Yup.
He adds >>>
First, an employee of Apple Canada sends a text message to my source that says something to the effect of: “You guys are screwed for iPhone,” but will not respond to multiple replies asking for clarification.
Next, an employee at competing handset manufacturer RIM (Blackberry’s parent) sends my source a text soon after saying there are rumours of an Apple-Rogers fallout.
Then, my source receives a call notifying him that all the part-time staff who had been hired for next week’s launch have been fired without notice. (UPDATE 07/06: Apparently, only certain dealerships took on additional staff for the launch, although most urban locations did. Also, some dealerships may not have let all their iPhone help go, but others definitely have. It’s important to clarify that any decisions to let staff go were made at the individual dealer level, and not by Rogers corporate…at least not directly.)
And finally, a senior Rogers rep confirms to my source that Apple has decided to divert a large percentage of their planned Canadian shipment to Europe and that each Rogers store may now be getting as few as 10-20 units. This is ostensibly possibly due to Apple’s displeasure over Rogers’ high data and voice rates. (UPDATE 07/06: Although no per-store numbers can be confirmed, the verbiage used by head office is apparently that numbers will be “significantly reduced” and that stores should “exercise caution” not to over-promise. Europe has also been reconfirmed as the destination for the allegedly diverted units.)
Stay tuned.
.
.Stumble It!
Smithereens blog – Apple Flips Rogers the Bird A Week Before Canadian iPhone Launch? (Plausible Rumor), July 5, 2008
July 11 – New site has facts on Rogers iPhone debacle, July , 2008
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July 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am
well, how to have a crappy product look good in sales figures?
have only a handfull for sale after all, and you can brag about “the Demand for our product is overwhelming. The people are loving our product. We have sold all your stock in just xxx yyyunits [use values here that looks impressive without giving a clue that the value AAA was only lower then 0.1k units
July 7th, 2008 at 11:58 am
If this is true (Canadian iPhone diverted to Europe), then it’s an EPIC WIN!
July 7th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Alter_Fritz, I suppose that would make sense, if market analysts were idiots. The more likely explanation is that Apple sees that Rogers’ piratical pricing model will be completely unattractive in Canada, thereby guaranteeing that the iPhone will be bought solely by a handful of rich gadget junkies.
Where is the Competition Bureau when we need it?