• i-Phone CEO of O2 UK predicts 'few hundred thousand sales'
• Mediacells forcasts considerably lower
• O2 Tariffs with iPhone start at 35 GBP for 18 months
• Carphone Warehouse open doors to the onslaught

O2 UK chief executive, Matthew Key, is credit as predicting that the iPhone will sell 'a couple of hundred thousand' before Christmas.

This would seem an ebullient figure and way ahead of the 120,000 maximum, Mediacells is currently forecasting on O2, pre-Christmas.

 The figure does not include the grey market of unlocked iPhones, devices which have been tampered with by independent dealers and high street sharks, which looks set to sell 25,000 pre-Christmas.

The lower forecasts are due mostly to scaling down of the iPhone reach on O2 and in the UK.

In the United States, 250, 000 devices were sold in the first 48 hours across 1400 AT&T stores and the 65 Apple stores, countrywide.