“France Telecom’s Orange expects to sell nearly 100,000 Apple Inc. iPhones by the end of 2007, the French phone company’s chief executive told Europe 1 radio in an interview on Tuesday,” Dominique Vidalon reports for Reuters. “‘The target is a little under 100,000 sold by the end of the year,’ Didier Lombard said.”
Vidalon reports, “Lombard also said Orange would offer the unlocked iPhone in France at a price ‘significantly lower’ than the 999 euros ($1,485) proposed by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile in Germany… The starting price of the iPhone with a contract will be 399 euros, he said.”
Full article here.
Why bother with UK, France Germany etc, For a few thousand phone phones – apple has spent way too much time and legal costs.
Pls lets move on – lets go to China India Brazil and Russia.
“why bother” you are right. why they dont go especially to east europe is beyond me. 250 million people in poland, bulgaria, ukraine, russia who are used to pay high prices for mobiles and happily do so. much better markets then the price-sensitiv west-european countries where people are used to heavy subsidized phones and hardly willig to pay for a phone upfront.
why bother,
because Europe has a much larger population with a higher average income than the U.S.
i.e. There are not as many really poor people in Europe as in the U.S.
…please do bother with the ‘small’ West-European countries – if only for me and many of my colleagues here eagerly awaiting the iPhone in NL and BE…
Hillary will give you the same kind of gummint that Europe has. Their fingers in everything. Ask Huma Abedin.
Gavin wrote…
“There are not as many really poor people in Europe as in the U.S.”
Sad but so very true! When you think about it it a damming fact hanging over the country today!
People should carry that little factoid with them when next they go to vote…
Don’t believe any of it, in Europe we have fat lazy bastards who sit at home on government payouts and so-called “invalidity benefits” which keep them from being as poor as they deserve to be…
People in China, India, Brazil and Russia don’t have the money. Those markets are for cheaper phones.
Apple will eventually sell iPhones everywhere. However just with iTMS, they have to have deals with partners in each country.
Whatever you think iTS is more profitable because it operates in multiple countries. Likewise selling more iPhones will increase the product’s profitability.
duh, thats not true. a lot of people in these countries buy expensive phones. for instance in the ukraine (50 million people live there) more than 5 million phones for a price over 400 dollars were sold in 2006. the same is true for most of the other east-european countries. to think that these countries are poor is a thing of the past.
magic word “often” as in:
often the world changes faster than you think.
then explain why the stock goes up 10 points on th emere mention of a tie-up with China Mobile. And its a yawn when iPhone in London and France is announced
@Gavron:
Not exactly. Standard of living and real buying power in the US are the envy of the world. Including Europe (speaking specifically of France, Switzerland and Germany, here).
The middle class in Europe is on a much lower level. I live with that reality every day. Really looking forward to moving back to the States for precisely this reason.
As for the “really poor” in the US – I’ll just mention that there are reasons for poverty – but they’re not in the political realm, and there is no shortage of jobs in the US for people capable of working. This is NOT true in W. Europe.
The poor in France are fed and housed by the state, for the most part – something the US does not do to nearly the same extent. While this is an interesting idea, the consequences are not obvious from the outset, and are not inconsiderable.
Define poor? In the USA our poor people have not only section 8 housing, (best tenants, guaranteed check by the Gov.) Paid for or reduced electricity, water, heating, food stamps, lots of other government entitlement giveaways.
I know people that I grew up with that were taught by their parents how to rape the system for all it is worth. And of course they are not working, some draw social security for being declared disabled. Yet nothing is really wrong with them other than laziness or the belife that a free ride on my taxpaying back is owed to them for being alive.
They have cable TV, on thier big screen TV’s cars, computers, phones, cell phones, free healthcare, and dental work for free cause all the meth they smoke. I’m seeing this done right now by people I know.
Of course who pay’s for this????? The ones who get our asses up every day and go to fucking work! That is who.
Does anyone in this country look like they are going hungry? Gee the last I heard we are up to 60% obese.
Thank God that we haven’t passed amnesty or this country would be a cess pool more than it already is.
So yes, elect Hibillary Rotten Clinton so we can give them everything else. And give more of our paycheck to her.