iPhone lands at Best Buy

Apple Inc. and AT&T Mobility just added nearly another 1,000 retail outlets for the iPhone 3G by hooking up with big-box retailer Best Buy.
That’s likely to gin up iPhone sales, boost AT&T Mobility’s fortunes and probably anger some of AT&T Mobility’s other independent resellers, who haven’t made it past the velvet rope to join the party.
Best Buy’s stock ticked upward briefly this morning to $46.33 before shedding its gain.
Best Buy, with 970 stores in the United States, will begin iPhone sales Sept. 7 (a Sunday) and the retailer’s prices will match those of its partners, the company said, with a $200 model (8 GB) and $300 model (16 GB).
iPhone 3G devices will be activated at the store, according to Jeff Dudash, a Best Buy spokesman.
Best Buy already sells Apple’s iPod nationwide, most of its stores carry Apple’s desktop and laptop computers and it sells iPhone and iPhone-compatible accessories.
The retailer also sells the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. Instinct – Sprint Nextel Corp.’s answer to the iPhone – for $130. Sprint Nextel has positioned the device to go head-to-head with the iPhone 3G and Best Buy announced in early July that the Instinct’s early sales were the strongest of any device for the past two years.
Best Buy also sells a wide range of smartphones, including products from Research In Motion Ltd., Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc., HTC Corp. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. The retailer said today it was seeing a 10-fold leap, year-over-year, in smartphone sales.
Synergy Research Group reported yesterday that the U.S. smartphone market grew 67% in the first half of 2008, over the same period last year. The market analysis firm also said that RIM has 46% of the U.S. smartphone market share, with Apple at 15%.
The addition of the iPhone 3G to Best Buy’s portfolio comes on the heels of the company’s effort to develop wireless services, dubbed Best Buy Mobile. The retailer is prepared for in-store activations and has spent considerable time training its staff – factors that may have been crucial to the deal with Apple and AT&T Mobility.
Part of that effort has been branded as “Walk Out Working,” a program where Best Buy employees ensure that smartphone purchasers have their devices set up, personalized and e-mail address books and data transferred from old device to new before customers leave the store.