When the iPhone is finally released in this country, it will not just be tech addicts that will be the winners; third party OEMS’, app makers and other providers will also be getting some hot action from the Apple gravy train.
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For local telcos, in particular newly-annointed iPhone vendors Vodafone and Optus it has the potential to massively boost revenue through increased data downloads.
For example, reports from T-mobile and O2 in Europe, and more recently AT&T in the US have all noted that anyone who uses an iPhone downloads more data than they ever had done so before with any other phone – all adding to an increasingly fat bottom line.
Furthermore, the iPhone’s impact is also expected to go way beyond just the mobile phone market, with many tech watchers saying there will be a flow on effect to such products as the iPod and by default, Apples online music store, iTunes.
And as was seen when the iPod was launched, sales of Mac computers also went up as well, a situation that will probably repeat itself post-iPhone launch.
And then there are the third party app and hardware providers such as makers of protective covers, portable hard drives, headphones, carry cases and all the various flavours of docking stations now available for the iPhone.
This digital ecosystem is something that Apple itself is carefully nurturing and with more than 21 million mobile phones in the country, Apple will be hoping that not only will consumers rush to replace their current mobile phones with the iPhone, but may well find it such a pleasure to use that their next purchase may well be an iPod and then, perhaps even decide a little later to replace that Toshiba or Sony laptop with a MacBook Air.
Microsoft and other vendors could well learn much from Apple in terms of cross marketing.