Vodafone to offer Apple's iPhone in ten markets

Thomas Husson | May 06, 2008, 03:38 AM

After the UK (02), Germany (T-Mobile), France (Orange), Austria (T-Mobile), Ireland (O2), the iPhone will be available via Vodafone in 4 new European countries (Greece, Italy, Portugal, the Czech Republic).

Interesting to point out that Spain is not included in this announcement, probably meaning Apple will find another partner (Telefonica?) for this country. Benelux and Scandinavia are also still missing to the European iPhone equation but they represent limited volumes.

Indeed, later this year, Vodafone customers will also be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network in 6 other countries around the globe (Australia, Egypt, India, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey).

At this stage, Vodafone is not announcing any further details at present. Which version of the iPhone will it be? Will Vodafone subsidize it (not very common practice in the Southern European prepay countries)? When? Is this an exclusive agreement with Apple?

There are lots of unanswered questions. Since the announcement of the launch a year and a half ago (in January 07), I am still wondering how Apple can really disrupt the market without embracing one way or another the mobile ecosystem.

No doubt such an agreement will help boosting sales and reaching the 10M objective at the end of 2008. Jupiter has already pointed out reasons why Iphone did not perform well in the more competitive and fragmented European market. Some operators (T-mobile, o2) have recently slashed prices (99 euros only with T-Mobile...but with a 99 euros monthly contract and a lock-in period of 2 years). This is also part of the natural life cycle of a product and an indication that new prodcuts may follow sooner than later. Let's just hope that the long-awaited 3G version will be HSPA. Anyway, it must be, otherwise the competitive advantage over EDGE would be too limited and Apple would be lagging behind competitors.