O2 Gets UK Exclusive On Palm Pre

O2 will next week announce it has an exclusive deal to sell the Palm Pre in the UK, according to reports.

The Pre is regarded as the most successful challenger so far to Apple’s iPhone – with our review praising its design. It launched in the US a month ago, and may have sold as many as 370,000 in its first weekend, according to reports.

Now O2 will be Palm’s exclusive partner in the UK, according to a report yesterday in earlier rumours.

Apple launched its new iPhone, the 3GS in June and sold a million phones in its first weekend, boosted mostly by a software upgrade.

O2 is the UK’s largest operator with 27 percent of the market, but rumours have recently suggested that Vodafone plans to overtake it by buying T-Mobile.

The Pre, like many iPhone challengers, has a qwerty keyboard as well as a touchscreen, and has an app store to download new applications. However, its new operating system means it has few applications as yet, so it won’t be picked up by business users in great numbers – although there are signs developers like it.

It may seem ironic for Palm to choose a partner which currently has the iPhone exclusive in the UK. However, it’s been rumoured that O2’s partnership with Apple, originally scheduled to last till 2011, may be about to finish, prompting high prices on the new iPhone.