Vodafone claims 50,000 first-day iPhone sales

Vodafone became the latest operator to offer Apple's iPhone on its network today, and said it had already taken pre-orders on 50,000 devices.

The company was at pains to point out that everything will run smoothly despite the potential surge in traffic on its network, making a subtle reference to O2's recent network coverage problems.

A spokesman for Vodafone said that the feedback the company had been hearing from users was that its network was performing really well.

"It's an outstanding phone and our network has been built for smartphones. We already carry vast volumes of data, so we've got the capacity to handle the iPhone demand," he said.

Despite the iPhone now being available on three network providers - Vodafone, Orange, O2 - and Tesco, Vodafone is not interested in starting a price war, sticking instead to similar contract lengths and prices as the other operators.

"People thought there'd be a price war [when we announced we'd sell the iPhone] but it's not a price war, it's about the quality of experience," the spokesman added.

O2 admitted in December that its London network had been unable to cope with an "explosion" in demand for data services from smartphones such as the iPhone, which led to poor service coverage for many users of the device.