“Apple has succeeded in committing European mobile phone operators that want exclusively to sell its new iPhone to share parts of their revenues with the technology group,” Astrid Maier and Volker Müller report for The Financial Times.
“The contract, which was signed by three European mobile operators in recent days, requires that the operators hand over to Apple 10% of the revenues made from calls and data transfers by customers over iPhones,” Maier and Müller report.
“The contract was signed by T-Mobile of Germany, Orange of France and O2 in the UK,” Maier and Müller report. “The operators are set officially to announce the partnerships at the IFA trade fair in Berlin at the end of August.”
“In the US, AT&T has negotiated a two-year contract with Apple, which is understood to be unusually heavily weighted in favor of Apple,” Maier and Müller report.
“‘These are not negotiations among equals. Apple clearly had the upper hand,’ one industry expert told FT Deutschland,” Maier and Müller report.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Leo” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iPhone plans called for a U.S.-first launch, followed by a UK-France-Germany launch, with other European countries to follow by end of 2007, and Asia sometime in 2008.
For what it’s worth – and it might give some indication of where Apple’s initial interests lie – After the initial U.S. launch, Apple launched their iTunes Store in Europe first in the UK, France and Germany in June 2004. Four months later, in October 2004, Apple launched iTunes Store in Austria, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain (Canada followed two months later in December 2004). Five months after that, in May 2005, came Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland (Japan followed in August and Australia in October 2005 and New Zealand in December 2006). Of course, keep in mind that music licensing agreements affected and/or dictated the iTunes Store launch dates.
Cha-ching
Dang! How long does it take for this site to accept my comments???
10% of revenue?!? Wow, that will really be great for Apple. Now, if only we can get it in Canada.
Wow… that took six attempts to post before it took.
What about Canada, eh?
i want half of all profits from the sale of zunes.
That’s crazy. Frankly, I don’t believe it. 10% of call and data revenue from iPhone usage? You’d have to hit me over the head with evidence on that one.
This way everybody stays happy
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YES!
O2 for the UK!
WooHooo!
This means that when the iPhone comes out in the UK I can just buy one from the Apple Store and just use my existing O2 number, choose a payment plan in iTunes and BANG – im connected!
Cooool!
This is fantastic news!!
Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t apple’s deal with ATT a five year contract. I remember reading that a while back but my memory is not what it once was!
Zipper Fish writes, “i want half of all profits from the sale of zunes.” Uh, maybe you do, but there are no profits; only losses.
I’ll believe it when it is officially announced. What happened to Vodafone? The rumors are like watching a tennis match, as to who has the deal and who does not.
Apple has the telco operators by the short hairs. To win the competition, they have to agree to terms that, long term, loosen their mafia like grip on revenues and will affect the whole industry. But they can’t afford to lose this competition, or they will lose a big part of their business to competitors.
Apple is in the catbird seat and knows it.
Raymond, a little known snippet for you,
USS Tang (SS-306), a United States Navy Balao class submarine that served briefly in World War II before being sunk by one of its own torpedoes.
Hence Zune Tang
“10% of calls and data transfer” with costumers like that girl that received her iphone bill on a box containing 300 pages, Apple is going to duplicate it cash on a mater of days…..
I was hoping Apple would go with Orange in UK as their coverage is best for me. I would buy a pear for me and the missus which would be great unless one of us got a lemon and then there’d be fights for who got the plum. I suppose we could pick straw-berries, nana arguments then but someone would have the blue-berries and blow a raspberry or two.
Couldn’t get avocado in but if you enjoy fruity humor search for ‘avocado testicle catholic’
I was hoping Apple would go with Orange in UK as their coverage is best for me. I would buy a pear for me and the missus which would be great unless one of us got a lemon and then there’d be fights for who got the plum. I suppose we could pick straw-berries, nana arguments then but someone would have the blue-berries and blow a raspberry or two.
Couldn’t get avocado in but if you enjoy fruity humor search for ‘avocado testicle catholic’
I was hoping Apple would go with Orange in UK as their coverage is best for me. I would buy a pear for me and the missus which would be great unless one of us got a lemon and then there’d be fights for who got the plum. I suppose we could pick straw-berries, nana arguments then but someone would have the blue-berries and blow a raspberry or two.
Couldn’t get avocado in but if you enjoy fruity humor search for ‘avocado testicle catholic’
I was hoping Apple would go with Orange in UK as their coverage is best for me. I would buy a pear for me and the missus which would be great unless one of us got a lemon and then there’d be fights for who got the plum. I suppose we could pick straw-berries, nana arguments then but someone would have the blue-berries and blow a raspberry or two.
Couldn’t get avocado in but if you enjoy fruity humor search for ‘avocado testicle catholic’
Apple’s starting to get a MS smell
Hmm..
I hope O2 have some good call packages, they’ll find it very hard to beat the Orange one I have now (with a “magic number” – i.e. a person I can call for as long as I want for no extra charge over my monthly £35).
Plus O2 signal strength is not so good in my home town…
Don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but the iPhone 1.0.2 update is out.
re: Hmm..
I hope O2 have some good call packages, they’ll find it very hard to beat the Orange one I have now (with a “magic number” – i.e. a person I can call for as long as I want for no extra charge over my monthly £35).
—
Im with O2 and my monthly call package is £17 per month and whenever I call anyone in my family (who are all on O2) all the calls to them are free.
So yes – O2 has some excellent packages.
i think the AT&T exclusivity contract was for 2 years, and only applies to the US. If they were exclusive to AT&T for 2or 5 years, Apple would lose so many sales. (so many sales, does that make sense?)
But ya, that only applies in the US.
“So yes – O2 has some excellent packages”
Shame about their data rates. That is unless you like being taken from behind by O2 whilst surfing via GPRS/3G.
MDN Magic Word: ideas – As in O2 need a few with regards mobile data plans.
@ Max, are you sure thats where his name derives from?
I assumed it was just derived from poontang / punetang (Meaning pu55y, like you didn’t know!) although i like your version better.
The Zune is essentially the marketing equivalent of friendly fire.
Whomever comes out with the iphone deal needs to bring in a realistic data pricing scheme or its not going to be a hit beyond the Mac faithful.
DATA paid for by the kB is crap.