Australian carriers feel heavy burden from iPhone 4

Stop us if you've heard this one. Apple releases the iPhone 4, and the tremendous demand from customers keeps store shelves bare. That's the case in Australia, where suppliers Telstra, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia are struggling to keep up.

As online stores generate increasing backlogs, shipping times increase. As of this writing, most customers are being asked to wait between two and three weeks for their orders to arrive. It's beginning to wear on shoppers and store owners alike. "Even one to two weeks, or up to three weeks, waiting time is not ideal," said an unidentified representative from Vodafone Hutchison Australia.

Meanwhile, Apple is sending out fresh supplies weekly. "Shipments of the iPhone 4 continue to be made," an Apple rep told The Australian. Supplies were strained in the US for quite a while after launch, but Apple seems to have finally caught up, as customers can now find iPhone 4s in Apple Stores and AT&T stores.

The whole thing reminds us of Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch, in which a hungry patron is trying to buy cheese from a shop that doesn't have any:

Shop owner: "[Our cheese shop is] the finest in the district."
Customer: "Explain the logic behind that conclusion."
Shop owner: "Well, it's so clean."
Customer: "It's certainly uncontaminated by cheese."

Here's hoping our friends down under get their cheese iPhone 4s soon.

[Via MacDailyNews]