“Mobile operator Orange will begin selling an unlocked an iPhone in France next month. This is due to a French law that prohibits exclusively bundling a handset with a wireless carrier,” BetaNews reports.
“Like in other European countries, the locked iPhone will cost 399 euros. The unlocked iPhone will cost more, Orange said, but will not specify how much until November,” BetaNews reports.
Full article here.
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$399 euro’s. damn!!! that is $566 dollars. While still less than the $599 the orginial iPhone went for (8 gig) that is still a lot more.
apple could sell it for $299 euro’s and still make an extra $25 per unit to cover the extra shipping and handling charges
Ok everyone who’s dying for an unlocked iPhone – time to goto France!
Its hardly Apple’s fault that the US economy is struggling and the dollar is so weak against the Euro.
“$399 euro’s. damn!!! that is $566 dollars. While still less than the $599 the orginial iPhone went for (8 gig) that is still a lot more.
apple could sell it for $299 euro’s and still make an extra $25 per unit to cover the extra shipping and handling charges”
@peragrin: That’s tax included. The American price is without tax. I know it’s still more than over there, but you get the real price.
Gonna get an unlocked one when I visit France in January!!
let the bashing commence!
Uhm, the US economy isn’t struggling. What’s the growth rate again? How many new jobs are being added every year? Yes, there are clouds on the horizon and some problems, but please. “Struggling”? I think I know your political orientation already.
Europeans (at least northern Europeans) earn more per capita than Americans, and the listed price includes the VAT, so the price isn’t as bad as it looks.
Dear Busting – hmm I think your economic analysis is simplistic- this is not the time and place for such discussion – regards
@BTSOI,
everyone already knows who your heroes are. Give it a rest.
“Uhm, the US economy isn’t struggling.”
dude your deluded! Get out of that bubble and open your eyes!!!
@BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots
He may be talking about your dollar, the US dollar is in the toilet, compared to the euro, canada and the aussie dollar.
In Europe taxes are far hiugher than in USA. Plus the laws will forbidd the Appl-AT&T;typed contracts. Therefore, Orange and Apple had only this one possible strategy: sell expensive with the choosen operator and sel the iPhone at a prhibitve and discouraging prize has free unloked phone.
Make no doubt to me that people will not even think about buying an iPhone without Orange.
Sillies. The US economy is far more robust than all that. The US economy is fine – all the more so because out manufacturing output is so cheap now.
What you’re looking at is the 20% sales tax (plus import duties) – the order of the day in that worker’s paradise we know as France. And probably a markup penalty because Apple gets no goodies from Orange to boost their earnings on unlocked phones.
So would it be correct to say that anyone I know visiting France in the near future could get me one these babies and I could use it in Ireland on any network? Even if I am a pay as you go customer??? Advice please, cheers!
Yep, wandering joe is correct, that price includes 19.6% VAT (sales tax) in France whereas US prices are quoted with sales tax.
So like-for-like price (sans tax) is 333 Euros, which at 1.42:1 equates to aprox $473
The difference is probably due to FX hedging, the US dollar is extremely weak atm, especially against the Euro. Plus a bit of extra needless margin.
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US prices WITHOUT sales tax. Damn MacBook Pro keyboard.
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Plus Import Duty which is 5%-17% depending on product, can’t be bothered to look it up.
But, bottom line is price difference is tax. They’ve got to pay for all those state employees somehow.
@peragrin
What about VAT and other taxes? We’re talking about Europe. Even the air you breathe is taxed. Especially in France, Germany and Italy.
I paid €499 for a Nokia N73. That’s usual in Italy. For us, an iPhone at 399 is cheaper than many other “traditional” phones…
MW: subject, as everything here is subject to taxes… :(((
Does anybody know which features work and which don’t on an unlocked phone? I love my iPhone, but AT&T;sucks big time. In down Phoenix I drop at least 5 calls a day with AT&T;. I know several people who have returned their iPhone and gone back to their old carriers. But I love visual voice mail. Does it work on T-Mobile?
– Not only Frenchs will have an option for unlocked iPhone in the future, but many others Europeans should have that option, because of sames laws in other countries, like Belgium, Finland, etc.
– If Apple/Orange put too much hight the price (999€..?) for the unlocked iPhones, I think french courts there will prohibite that range of price because it will be denounced as an indirect prohibition of sale of the unlocked iPhone option. Consumers there must have a real choice between carriers’s SIM card… It’s some kind of antitrust law, making a cellphones real competitive market.
Don’t forget that cellular market in Western Europe is more mature there (cellphone per capita, GMS,
SMS, 3G, etc), than in North America.
The iPhone including VAT at €399 (as it is sure to be throughout the whole of the Eurozone, like iTunes) means Apple will be making more money from it in some countries than others as the VAT ranges from 15% in Luxembourg to 22% in Finland (excluding non-eurozone countries).This works out at €20 more for Apple for each iPhone in Luxembourg than in Finland. That can really add up.
MDN word = half (glass half empty or half full)
US prices WITHOUT sales tax. Damn MacBook Pro keyboard.
Plus Import Duty which is 5%-17% depending on product, can’t be bothered to look it up.
But, bottom line is price difference is tax. They’ve got to pay for all those state employees somehow.
Really?
Is there a similar price difference in Macbooks or MacBook Pros?
The US and the world needs the weaker dollar to counter the trade deficit.
It will stop the US slowing, but will give problems to Europe and others.
In Britain the Labour government has added 670,000 state employees to the payroll. Big problem.
Back on topic: is there any way Apple could prevent this being used outside France, eg. by limiting it to French-language updates (might still be useful in Canada!) or requiring a French iTunes account?
One more reason for being proud to be European
Food, garlic, women, skiing, style, TGV, Airbus, Citroen DS… and now unlocked iPhone.
That’s it, I’m moving to France.
What is the sales tax in NY? I had planned to buy an iPod touch next week (much cheaper than our price over here), but maybe the tax makes it comparable. What about Massachusets? Do they have sales tax there as well?
Thanks.
Betcha that high priced iPhone for France has 16G of flash.
If the locked iPhone will go for €399 plus contract. The unlocked phone will go phone for either €499 or €599. The value of Apple’s cut of the contract would put it in the lower €500s, so I’m sure that both Apple’s & Orange’s bean counters and PR people are arguing whether they can get away with sticking it to people vs. the positive press of the lower price point.
Oh and for those of you arguing about the value of of the dollar vs. the Euro, when the Euro was first introduced in 1999, €1 = USD$1.40. The Euro promptly tanked reaching a nadir of €1 = USD$0.82. At the current exchange rate the Euro is simply back where it started. Over time the Euro and the U.S. Dollar will be roughly equal.
Apple has to pick a happy medium as far as its prices go.
New York sales tax:
http://www.earthodyssey.com/sales_tax.html
@BustingTheSkullsOfIdiots and @Me,
The US dollar is down over 10% since the beginning of the year and the country is still borrowing from other countries at a furious pace to fund the war. If you’ve had money in a CD at 5.5% you’ve been losing money all year. That doesn’t mean the economy is about to fail, just that we’re all paying for the war.
War companies, especially the Bush, Cheney, Rice oil industries, have made more additional profits from the war than the cost of the war. The oil price rise is the most obvious and Haliburton’s gross overcharging has made the most headlines. So the taxpayers of US (and UK) are paying in one end and the executives and shareholders of Texaco, Haliburton, Chevron, BP, Shell, Raytheon, Carlisle Group and all those guys are taking it out the other. Who said the war wasn’t going according to plan? – it depends if you know what the plan was.
MagicWord evidence – go find it!
I’m gonna laugh when all these people go to France to get an unlocked iPhone, only to realize that the UI is in French.
Or has Apple said anything about supporting ability to switch localization settings on the european iPhones?
@Ryan,
I’m guessing you’ll be able to apply a firmware update to take care of that. Since the unlock is in the modem firmware, applying a standard iPhone OS firmware update wouldn’t undo the unlock.
This is very good news as it means that owning an unlocked iPhone will no longer be taboo in Apple’s eyes. Hopefully when iPhone comes to Rogers in Canada, they will also offer an unlocked model.
They should offer unlocked iPhones in the US too, and just give AT&T;a big cut of the extra profits from the higher price as compensation for not having carrier exclusivity. People would still have to buy them from either Apple or AT&T;and at say $100-200 more expensive would still be a big incentive to sign a contract with AT&T;as with most cell phones.
@ Kazman, you BASIC is showing!
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@ Me, look at the back of your iPhone and tell me again where that manufacturing output is so cheap?
@ Alec, no, visual voicemail doesn’t work on T-Mobile, because it requires network support on the provider end. Cingular agreed to make add that support as part of their deal with Apple, before Cingular became the new AT&T;.
@ Papyboomer, I was thinking the same thing. Orange and Apple can’t make the unlocked iPhone too much more expensive, or the French courts will not be pleased.
Ok the iPhone is going on sale unlocked in France, DRM free iTunes is now a reality.
Apple will eventually sell it elsewhere unlocked and even though SJ says 3G isn’t worth it, he also said Intel wasn’t needed.
It’s just a matter of waiting…..
“Apple will eventually sell it elsewhere unlocked and even though SJ says 3G isn’t worth it, he also said Intel wasn’t needed.”
Steve eventually sees the light. He usually nees some other company to lead the way, but Apple eventually gets there.
Steve has the dubious distinction of being one of the few Americans ever to surrender to the French.
Good news is that the hacker community will have a “genuine” Apple factory unlocked phone and will be able to copy it bit-to-bit.
399 euros is a good price lower than the average smartphone price.
BUT Apple has several ways to block the transcontinental sales and grey market :
1) make a database of all the IMEI (internal serial number) and assign them only to the French Market and used only thru the French Itunes store.
2) make sure that the French itunes store is accessed only via the French IP range of addresses (if possible)
3) make sure that only an Orange IP range is used to activate the iPhone via Itunes
4) make sure that the very first call/activation is made to a French Orange special toll free number only accessible from France (this is possible)
There is something also strange is that Apple agreed to sell ONLY thru Orange onstreet stores, not on the Apple online store = “bizarre”
In one way maybe Apple is doing this to freeze a little the grey market in order to free the field for iPhone V2.0 ??
@Followers wrote:
“Steve eventually sees the light. He usually nees some other company to lead the way, but Apple eventually gets there.”
Wow, you really are disconnected from reality. Sure, occasionally Apple picks up a good idea from someone else. But to frame Apple broadly as a “follower” (rather than a leader)? Including with respect to DRM?
Wow–just, wow.
Allo Allo, Steve ere, I surrender.
If true, expect French iPhones to be selling on eBay for $1,000 or more.
@Me
“…markup penalty because Apple gets no goodies from Orange to boost their earnings on unlocked phones.”
Orange gives 30% back to Apple! Not very tiny earning, so far!
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Euro is a Euro.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Pound is a Pound.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Yen is a Yen
Anyone, who who has resettled from one modern country to another, say, like from the USA to a contemporary European country, or as in my case, Australia to England … not just on an extended holiday! … but living an ongoing life as a local, will know, after a while, after getting your life adjusted to living as a local and earning as a local – in your respected field of excellence – (what ever that line might be) you soon come to realize that –
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Euro is a Euro.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Pound is a Pound.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Yen is a Yen
All the conversion rates fall by the wayside and are relatively meaningless. Sure, on holiday, bitch and moan about the cost of a hotel, the price of a coffee or beer, that’s to be expected by most. But when you are earning properly, and living the life as “one of them” – You will soon understand that –
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Euro is a Euro.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Pound is a Pound.
A Dollar is a Dollar – a Yen is a Yen.
Sitting at home trying to evaluate shit, by exchange rates is by and large dumb. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules, and some armchair experts will differ, but anyone who has successfully assimilated into a new country will agree to the above.
Thanks Believe It. What this means is that even with NYST of nearly 9%, the iPod Touch is still 18% cheaper in NY than in Switzerland.
Oh yeah, and 25% cheaper than in Paris.
MW “know”, as in “now I know where I will buy my iPod Touch”.
“If true, expect French iPhones to be selling on eBay for $1,000 or more.”
Better still, when you see a French guy using an iPhone, walk up behind him and make a loud noise. He’ll immediately put his hands in the air, drop his iPhone and surrender.
@la Job de Steve
and you too surrender, stupid f..k.ng idiot !! French have contributed immensily to this world and piss on you and your ancesters who killed indian children : isn’t it a good cliché now ?
To all the Yanks who has made cracks about the French surrendering, what about…
Vietnam..?
Korea..?
Iran contra debacle?
… soon to be gving up in Iraq.
… “surrendering” the US economy to the Chinese?
I guess memories here are selective. Vive Le France. (BTW, I’m not French, but just open-minded and not filled with ethno-centric smugness)
MW: “College” as in get an education.
“French have contributed immensily to this world”
That’s right. They’ve greatly increased world morale by being a group of people that everyone in the world can feel superior to.
Vietnam..?
Korea..?
If the French hadn’t screwed the pooch in Indochina, and surrendered Vietnam to Japan in WWII and become a Japanese puppet government in Vietnam, the USA probably wouldn’t have needed to be there.
Perhaps you need to get an education.