While the O2 website crash has made recent headlines, details have finally emerged surrounding the cause of the meltdown. In an official reply from O2, the carrier noted that “Demand for the iPhone 3G is staggering…we were experiencing 13,000 orders per second being placed.”
Now that is demand on an unprecedented scale. If we do the math on that, it would be 780,000 orders per minute. While the subsidized cost for the iPhone 3G can be as little as free with select O2 plans, if we average the cost at $200, that would be $156 million in iPhone sales per minute. Simply unbelievable.
If the estimate of 500,000 iPhones being shipped to the UK for Friday’s launch is accurate, that would equate to a sellout in about 38 seconds. Some believe that O2 may have handled the buying process improperly, but it looks like both O2 and Apple will undeniably come out on top, as they have already sold out.
