Apple Sets U.K. iPhone Launch

Apple is also dueling with antitrust regulators from the European Commission, which has just emerged battle-hardened from a victory over Microsoft .

Apple has resisted the Commission's calls for it to unlock iPod so that consumers can use them with music services other than iTunes. However, the company is just as unlikely to let the iPhone work with other music services, stoking regulators' ire.

In Europe, Apple will butt heads with Finland's Nokia (NOK), the world's largest handset maker. Nokia has less than 10% market share in the U.S., so the iPhone is largely untested against the Finnish company's range of multimedia devices.

The iPhone "doesn't need to be the dominant product in order to be enormously successful," says Kirk Kim, portfolio manager at Transamerica Investment Management. "Apple needs to get into new markets, and the biggest upside comes from penetration into Europe and potentially Asia."

When factoring in generous payment terms from AT&T (T) and now O2, Kim says that the gross margins on the iPhone approach 100%. That means that even if the iPhone isn't among the hottest-selling phones in the U.S. and Europe, it will still make a sizable contribution to Apple's sales and profitability.

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