Vodafone to launch iPhone in emerging markets

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

O2 Sells 8000 iPhones on first night

O2 sent an email to stores an hour after the launch, claiming that 2,000 customers who bought iPhones from O2 stores had registered their devices at 7:02pm. That figure soared to 8,000 by the end of the night.

Sales vary considerably from store to store, with anecdotes of disinterest from some, disbelief at the price tag from others and customers queuing in the snow at O2’s Aberdeen store.

Source: http://www.mobiletoday.co.uk/content/17234.asp?men=2&sub=1

Most O2 and Carphone stores said they sold ’solid numbers’ of iPhones – tens rather than hundreds.

200000 iPhones to be sold by O2 UK by end of year

O2 UK expects to sell around 200,000 iPhones by the start of the New Year. Sales will start on 9 November, and Matthew Key, CEO of O2’s UK business, told the Financial Times he expected “a couple of hundred thousand” iPhones to be sold in the first two months.

O2 has ordered “hundreds of thousands” of iPhones from Apple for its stores and online outlets as well as shops run by Carphone Warehouse. After the June launch in the US, 1 million iPhones were sold in just under two and a half months.

The iPhone will sell for GBP 269 in the UK, and customers will have to take out an O2 contract for at least GBP 35 per month for 18 months.

Apple iPhone for Europe partnering with Vodafone, t-Mobile & Carphone Warehouse?

On the rumour mill for some weeks has been the story that Vodafone and t-Mobile were in discussions about sole distributorship rights for a European iPhone. But now Gizmodo, have suggested that an announcement is due today and that both operators will win, leveraging the successes of both networks in different countries.

This would be great news for GSM users globally, a non-exclusive agreement would have far reaching appeal to mobile phone users than the American AT&T arrangement. Gizmodo also suggest that Carphone Warehouse (its name in the UK) will also get a distributor licence.

We wait to hear if it will be a 3G phone with better camera and more memory!