Seven million UK mobile fans likely to buy an iPhone

Some seven million UK mobile phone users are interested in buying an iPhone when it becomes available here, according to research.

Of the 56 per cent of subscribers aware of Apple's imminent new arrival, almost a third (30 per cent) expressed a strong interest in buying one when surveyed by research firm M:Metrics.

"We expected that mobile users in the UK would be more inclined to buy an expensive device, since smartphones are twice as popular in the UK as in the US," said Paul Goode, vice president and senior analyst at M:Metrics.

"These figures are very impressive, although respondents in the UK were not presented with a launch price or any restriction of mobile phone carrier as in the US."

Mark Donovan, senior vice president and senior analyst, added that the iPhone's introduction is likely to increase consumer demand for more expensive, full-featured phones from other manufacturers.

"While other devices - some of them already on the market - have features equal or better than the iPhone, such as 3G, superior cameras, and the like, the iPhone has been the first mobile device to create widespread consumer excitement around a mobile phone," Donovan said.

While much has been made of "killer" iPhone features such as multitouch and the widescreen iPod, Nokia board member Daniel Hesse believes that Apple's decision to stick with 'sideloading' for getting content onto the handset will be key to its success.

Sideloading is a newly popular term for transferring music and other media files from a computer to a peripheral device - such as an iPod or mobile phone. Hesse notes that not only is it faster than downloading direct to a mobile device, it also makes organising (and backing up) content much easier.

"Sideloading will be absolutely crucial," Hesse said. "I think no matter how fast the wireless networks get here, the computer is always faster."

But Hesse does not believe that this will be enough to guarantee that iPhone will be a hit anywhere outside the US, where it launches on 29 June.

"I think it will be big in the U.S., but not anywhere else," he told CNN Money.

"In Europe and Asia there are all those phenomenal phones out there that make the iPhone look pedestrian."

The iPhone's Bluetooth headset has received regulatory approval from the US Federal Communications Commission. Little is known about the headset, which was announced by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs during the iPhone's unveiling in January but has not been mentioned since. At Apple's request, photographs and a user manual were not included in the FCC documents.

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