Would geeks and early adopters REALLY pay treble the RRP for the iPhone 5?

A new study compiled by Professor Michael Waterson, an economy analyst at the University of Warwick, suggests that the UK is full of tech snobbery and obsessive early adopters.

Waterson has predicted that Apple fans here in the UK will actually be willing to part with their pennies and pay three times the RRP for the new iPhone 5 device set to be announced later today, just so they can get their hands on it earlier than anyone else.

The predictions come after Waterson analysed eBay transactions following the launch of the iPhone 4.

“For the 16GB version of the phone, 98% of sales completed at a value in excess of the listed retail price of £499. The average price was £640.35 and the maximum achieved was £1,180. For the 32GB version of the phone, 97% of the sales completed above the listed retail price of £599. The average price was £778.73 and the maximum price achieved was £1,551.”

One of the main reasons for such inflated prices on eBay was due to the stock shortages of the last device, so it’ll be interesting to see how the iPhone 5 will fare and whether some crazy people with money to burn will really spend over a grand on it. Come on guys, it’s only a phone after all.

[Via Tech Digest]