Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile unit in Germany has said that average wireless data usage from the iPhone is as much as thirty times higher than from other phones. Speaking at the German carrier’s announcement of key metrics around its T-Mobile operation earlier this week, Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann explained how the Apple devices are helping to drive up mobile data use for the operator. “iPhone customers retrieve weather reports, stock prices and YouTube videos from the Internet on the go, all as a matter of course,” an Unstrung report quotes Obermann as stating. “The average Internet usage for an iPhone customer is more than 100 Mbytes. This is thirty times the use for our average contract-based consumer customers.”

T-Mobile Germany launched the iPhone last November and has sold 70,000 devices to date. Earlier this week Mobile Business Briefing reported on analyst speculation surrounding the possibility of significant levels of iPhone channel inventory worldwide. A recent earnings conference call saw Apple announce it activated 900,000 iPhones during the fourth quarter. US operator AT&T wrapped up 2007 with “just at or slightly under two million iPhone customers,” according to company executives. However, Apple announced at Macworld earlier this month it has sold 4 million iPhones as of mid January. Although international sales could account for some of the gap, some analysts believe there are many iPhones left unaccounted for.