“France Telecom has exclusive rights to distribute the Apple iPhone in France, chief executive Didier Lombard said,” Thomson Financial reports.
“The iPhone will be distributed in France ‘before Christmas, probably in November,’ Lombard said,” Thomson Financial reports.
Brief article here.
“France Telecom SA’s Orange wireless unit will start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone in France in November, betting the handset model will spur sales in the market of about 52 million wireless customers,” Anuchit Nguyen and Rudy Ruitenberg report for Bloomberg.
“‘We have signed the agreement,’ France Telecom Chief Executive Officer Didier Lombard said in an interview in Hanoi today following a press briefing. ‘It’s an important product for us because a lot of French consumers love technology and want this product in their pockets.’ The deal gives Apple access to France Telecom’s 23 million French mobile subscribers,” Nguyen and Rudy Ruitenberg report.
Much more in the full article here.
Le Steve will not be happy he let le cat out of le bag!
There’s a special plan for French enterprise subscribers that want to use their iPhones in secret.
It’s called Duck ala Orange.
The Coneheads approve.
eeFehn?
Apples and Oranges
Hahaha. You guys are funny. Cheers!
The French should be juiced from the news.
No matter how you slice it, that provider has a peel.
The French don’t deserve the iPhone.
Is your mother young?
Cheese Monkeys does not deserve bananas, but he deserves french cheese……a lot of it
So, Mr Monkeys go tell The Jobs that he should not sell in France.By the way….didn you say that French do not deserve Macs? Didn’t hear…….
UK, France, Germany… Can we move on now! That is like California, Florida, Minnesota…
I want my iPhone NOW! Not in february! Now!
UK – 60 million
France – 60 million
Germany – 80 million
Now which states have population figures like that, certainly not Minnesota and Massachusetts aren’t even among the top 10
And what about Canada? Why isn’t the iPhone here yet? Damn Rogers!
Oh well, I hope SFR – the number two operator in France and the largest 3G network – is ready to handle the customer churn as as a significant percentage of its 17.9 million customers are going be migrating to France Telecom’s Orange network.
I hope that losing three hundred million Euros a month in sales doesn’t hurt SFR’s profitability too much – although, at 30% profitability, that sounds like it’s going to cost about $1.5 billion in profits at the current exchange rate.
Maybe – if SFR begins to suffer – its majority (56%) shareholder, Vivendi SA, can help them out from their dividends from NBC Universal or Universal Music Group.
And here we see how decisions have consequences: if Vivendi SA had publicly kept UMG’s management in its box over issues like variable pricing and iPod royalties whilst publicly supporting Apple Inc., maybe – and it’s a slim maybe – they’d now have the Jesus Phone and they’d be looking at a making a share of $1.5 billion a year as opposed to losing a share of $1.5 billion.
56% of $1.5 billion is $840 million, which is a bit more than the pathetic nickel-and-dime scam that Doug Morris was trying to pull by getting a couple of bucks for each iPod (let’s say $100 million) and a 50% hike in UMG’s income from iTS (which would probably be around $350 million).
Oh, if anyone was wondering who owned the other 44% of SFR, it’s Vodafone who own a significant chunk of Verizon and bailed from the opportunity to have the iPhone in the UK.
I’d really love to have a camera crew follow these bozos around for the next couple of years as their world collapses around them, if for no other reason than I’d like to see someone else other than me suffering.
Cheese and the French? It’s strange how they have got linked, the French eat very little cheese, and sparingly. And you know those fscked up bits of potato that are called French Fries in the US, you’d never find a frenchman eating that junk.
Cheese (and other dairy products) is responsible for 70% of BO, not surprising really as it’s already rotting and fermenting. Fresh dairy, that’s laugh, unless you drink raw milk (camel’s milk included) it’s weeks if not months old already. Eat fresh, ie go out pick it and eat it, leaves are the best (really), dandelion is good, free and easily accessible.
I guess Apple looks at size of market, average income of market, tech-savviness of market, current infrastructure and of course bureaucratic regulations in determining which markets to launch iPhone in. Sorry Finland, you score high on everything but market size, and are Fins more loyal to Nokia?
“France – 60 million”
That sounds like about 60 million Frenchmen too many. Shouldn’t somebody call up Germany and get them to do something about that?