Vodafone to offer iPhone contracts in ten countries - Apple u-turn?
By Dave Parrack
This morning saw mole phone network operator Vodafone announce that they had won the right to distribute the iPhone in ten countries. However, in Italy, one of the ten, it seems the contract isn’t an exclusive one, with Telecom Italia also bragging the right to distribute the device. Could this mean Apple are doing a u-turn on having one exclusive distributor in each country?
Via a press release, Vodafone announced that they have won the right to distribute the iPhone in ten countries - Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. The deal is said to begin later this year, which means we could be talking iPhone 2.0 rather than the original.
The iPhone 2, otherwise known as the 3G iPhone, has still not been officially unveiled, but most industry watchers believe it will finally be announced in June. It seems that to coincide with the new model, Apple are looking not only to increase the markets in which the devices are sold in, but also the networks which can offer it.
Italy is the first country where two competing network operators have both been given contracts to distribute the iPhone, and according to Times Online, this could signal a bit of a forced u-turn on Apple’s part.
Up to now, Apple have forced network operators to accept a stringent revenue model which is thought to see the company receive 10% of revenues in exchange for exclusivity for two years in one territory.
Will Draper, an analyst at Execution said of the Italy deal:
“This is definitely a sign Apple is capitulating,”
“The initial model was that Apple would give the iPhone to a network on an exclusive basis, but in Europe, where you have the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson selling sophisticated 3G devices, the iPhone simply isn’t seen as such a premium product.”
“Apple is realising that it should be making the iPhone as widespread as possible - Vodafone having taken the view in Italy that it is not willing to share revenues for what will likely be a mediocre product,”
Apple may be backtracking on the exclusivity deals, and being forced to take less of a cut to get the product out to as many places as possible, but what is clear from today’s announcement, and the company’s push to launch the product in China as soon as possible, is that the new iPhone will be everywhere. And Apple are willing to take less of a revenue from each unit sold to enable that to happen.
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