T-Mobile says over 10,000 iPhones sold at German launch

T-Mobile, the mobile services arm of Deutsche Telekom, said Friday it has sold more than 10,000 iPhones on the first day the touch-screen handsets were made available in Germany.

The iPhones were purchased via the company's retail stores and over the Web, T- Mobile said, adding that it is "well prepared" to meet further high demand.

Speaking in a television interview Thursday, company's chief executive Rene Obermann said it's possible demand in Germany for iPhones during the Christmas sales season may outstrip supply.

T-Mobile's upbeat comments arrive in stark contrast to observations published Friday by media outlet Reuters, which insinuated that the German launch was lackluster at best.

While a few hundred "hardcore fans" lined up at a Deutsche Telekom retail store in Cologne, Germans in downtown Frankfurt reportedly lived up to their reputation for thrift and resistance to hype.

Outside the T-Mobile store on Frankfurt's main shopping street, people hurried to work without noticing the placards outside the shop proclaiming the iPhone's arrival, according to Reuters.

"Really? No, I had no idea," said one woman, declining to stop to give her name when asked whether she was aware the iPhone went on sale on Friday.

MacNotes.de publishes a photo gallery from the launch.

Shoppers in Cologne pack a Deutsche Telekom retail store.

Meanwhile, one solitary would-be buyer loitered outside the shop an hour and a half before opening time.

"I'm astonished there's no one else here," said 34-year-old Uwe Berger, a computer programmer who fell in love with the iPhone on a recent visit to the United States.

"I don't find the price too high. The iPhone can do more than other phones and of course it's much better."