A 22 year-old student from Auckland has become the first person to purchase an iPhone 3G handset.

The Vodafone retail store in New Zealand kicked off the worldwide rollout of the iPhone 3G, which is taking place across the globe at 8am local time.

Jonny Gladwell braved freezing temperatures outside the store for 60 hours in order to be the first customer on the planet to purchase the new iPhone. The first version of the handset was not released in New Zealand.

"I am going to put this on charge, have a play around with it and have a nice long sleep," Gladwell told Reuters.

Friday's release marks the first truly global rollout for an iPhone model. The first handset was released in the US on 29 June 29 2007, but did not go international until almost five months later when the device made its debut in Europe.

Customer anticipation for the new iPhone is said to be just as high in many parts of the world.

UK operator O2 had to temporarily shut down its pre-order system after users flooded the site with a reported 10,000 requests per second.

In countries that have already experienced the iPhone hysteria once, the queuing phenomenon has taking on a sideshow quality.

A group of environmental activists in New York sought out their share of media attention by starting the queue a full week before the release.

A London man is using his place at the head of the queue at Apple's Regent Street store to promote a line of wearable sleeping bags.