Demand lifts True iPhone sales target

       True Corporation is raising its iPhone sales target by 50% this year to 150,000 units following overwhelming response to the 3G S WiFi model during prebookings.
       The bookings over a two-week period that ended on Monday tripled the company's projection, said Papon Ratanachaikanont, deputy chief commercial officer of True Corp.
       "The pre-booking list was a surprisingly positive response, beyond our expectations for both True and Apple Inc,"he said.
       "We are now facing a supply shortage problem, with Apple committed to allocating some quotas from other countries to Thailand."
       True has already obtained the first batch of 3,500 units. The second batch of the same number was scheduled early next month and an additional 3,500 units would be delivered later next month.
       Mr Papon said the delivery of 3,500 iPhone 3G S handsets will be made on Friday for pre-booking customers first in Bangkok at 112 True shops. Deliveries for the remaining bookings would be completed next month.
       True initially expected to deliver the iPhone 3G S WiFi starting tomorrow under its pre-booking projection volume of 3,500 units, the same number it prepared for the first launch of iPhone 3G in February.
       True, together with Apple, will compensate the pre-booking customers on the waiting list with a genuine-leather case worth 1,200 baht for free.
       The iPhone 3G S Wi-Fi comes in two models: the 16-gigabyte model which costs 24,500 baht, and the 32-gigabyte model priced at 28,500 baht. The phones feature a Thai keyboard, double-speed processor performance and a 3-megapixel digital camera. It allows users to send multimedia messages and to record and edit video clips.
       "We expect the sales of iPhone 3G S WiFi handsets to double to 100,000 this year, lifting our total iPhone sales projection from 100,000 to 150,000 units,"Mr Papon said.
       True has sold 50,000 units of 8-gigabyte iPhone handsets since the February launch.
       Mr Papon attributed the success of the new iPhone model to the company's 18,000 WiFi locations nationwide plus a variety of 50,000 iPhone applications and 50 applications from True.
       He also said the success had strengthened the group's mobile-phone business unit True Move, with the number of its high-margin postpaid subscriber base surging by 50% or 80,000 year-onyear in the second quarter.
       The proportion of existing iPhone users shifting to True Move also increased to 60% from 40% early this year.