Apple's highly-hyped iPhone faces both expectation and competition

While eager buyers were lining up across the United States Friday to buy Apple's highly anticipated iPhone, the computer giant's first wireless phone device faces wild expectations as well as competitions.

As the remarkable pre-sale buildup for Apple's latest gadget nears its end, major wireless carriers are figuring out their strategies to compete with AT&T, the iPhone's exclusive service provider in the country.

After six months of Apple's famed marketing tactics, along with consumer anticipation and hype rarely seen for a new product, the iPod-like handset iPhone finally went on sale Friday evening at Apple stores and AT&T outlets, where customers can purchase up to two iPhones per person.

During the final hours of waiting, anxious customers reportedly stood in lines that numbered hundreds of people in cities from San Francisco to New York, in an effort to ensure that they would get their hands on the sleek new device.

For its part, Apple depends on those fans in the long lines to translate its new product into another market phenomena like the iPod digital music player, which has helped the company's shares increase almost 700 percent since its debut six years ago.

With more than 100 million iPods already sold, Apple has successfully changed from a niche computer manufacturer to become a major consumer electronics maker, helping to change the way people buy and listen to music.

Whether the iPhone could become the next iPod probably needs years to see, but for now, Apple couldn't have planned a better position for its first foray into the wireless phone market.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, hopes the iPhone will claim one percent of the mobile phone market within a year, while some analysts estimate that some 4.5 million to 5 million units of iPhone would be sold during the first year.

Apple signed a multi-year exclusive agreement to sell the iPhone with AT&T in the United States, meaning that customers will have to become AT&T users to get the device. AT&T currently has the biggest U.S. wireless network, with more than 62 million users.

But the iPhone would not be the only cell phone sold this weekend, as other wireless carriers including Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile already offer a variety of smart-phones to woo customers and brace for the iPhone sensation. And industry analysts say the real test will be in the coming months, even years.

Source: Xinhua