Vodafone and Apple to bring iPhone 3G to Australia, Italy, New Zealand & Portugal on July 11

Vodafone, the world’s leading international mobile communications group, and Apple today announced that the highly anticipated iPhone 3G will be available in Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal on July 11, and in the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, India, South Africa and Turkey later this year. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

“We are very excited to bring iPhone 3G to many of our customers across Europe and emerging markets this summer,” said Frank H. Rövekamp, global CMO, Vodafone Group, in the press release. “Vodafone’s extensive, high speed and reliable networks mean customers can enjoy a great Internet and communications experience on their iPhone 3G.”

“We’re excited to work with Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company, to bring iPhone 3G to 10 countries across the globe,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO, in the press release. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product in the hands of even more people around the world.”

Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal will be the first Vodafone markets to offer customers iPhone 3G for purchase on July 11. iPhone 3G will be available via Vodafone on both prepay and contract price plans which will include great value data bundles. Other markets will follow later this year and full details of specific launch dates and price plans will be made available soon by individual Vodafone operating companies. Customers in Vodafone’s 10 markets where iPhone 3G will be available can pre-register online and in retail stores in the next few days.

Vodafone is the world’s leading international mobile communications group with over 260 million proportionate customers as of 31st March 2008. Vodafone currently has equity interests in 25 countries across five continents and a further 42 partner networks worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.vodafone.com.