O2 Suffers iPhone Drought

Well this certainly doesn’t bode well for O2: The U.K. wireless carrier, which has reportedly been selling about 2,200 iPhones a day since it secured exclusive distribution rights to the device in 2007, has run out of the 3GS model.

Rabid demand for the iPhone has emptied not just the company’s physical retail outlets, but its online store as well. “We continue to see extremely high levels of demand for the iPhone which means it comes in and out of stock very quickly and will be why the Web site hasn’t had any since Monday,” an O2 spokesperson told the Telegraph.

News of the shortage comes just days after O2 rivals Orange and Vodafone both announced plans to carry the iPhone later this year, bringing an end to O2’s exclusivity deal with Apple (AAPL). If Apple is unable to meet consumer demand with just a single U.K. carrier, how will it cope with three?

A reasonable question, but one for which Apple presumably has an answer. Said Forrester (FORR) analyst Mark Mulligan, “I don’t think [Apple] would expand if it couldn’t meet consumer demand, as that would lead to extreme consumer dissatisfaction–which compared to its peers, Apple is usually good at avoiding.”