Wal-Mart – the post-Christmas iPhone dumping ground
By Erna Mahyuni
The iPhone is coming to Wal-Mart. But don’t plan on doing your iPhone Christmas shopping there, as the phones will only be available December 28th.
Phillip Elmer-Dewitt of the Apple 2.0 blogged about it, sounding as mystified as the rest of us.
“If you’re going to bring the iPhone to Wal-Mart, why not do it before Christmas — as originally rumored — rather than after?” His source of the news was the Boy Genius Report, which stated that Apple would be rolling out the units to Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club outlets with the view of expanding the reach to 2,500 Wal-Mart owned stores.
This means Wal-Mart would join Best Buy and AT&T stores as retail presences outside of Apple’s 200-plus stores stockng the iPhone. But Wal-Mart means one heck of a reach for the iPhone and possibly pushing iPhone sales right out of the current stratosphere.
My personal theory on the move – so that Apple can draw out as much profit as it can before surrendering a lot of that to Wal-Mart. Something will have to give for Wal-Mart to agree to stock iPhones and that will probably the supplier’s price for the best-selling mobile phone of all time.
Here’s an excerpt of the memo about the Wal-Mart rollout as seen on the Boy Genius Report:
We are pleased to announce that Wal-Mart has reached agreement with Apple to offer iPhone 3G in Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart-managed Sam’s Club* Connection Centers nationwide beginning December 28, 2008. AT&T will support Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club with the activation process for iPhone 3G, and we need all National Retail employees engaged to ensure a successful launch.
*NOTE: This product launch DOES NOT apply to SC Kiosks within Sam’s Club managed by Radio Shack.
Wal-Mart has communicated the following launch plans and execution timeline to their employees:
iPhone 3G will be available in-store only beginning 12/28/08
New and existing customers in good standing can purchase iPhone 3G with a 2 year contract
iPhone 3G transactions only will be processed through POS.com, not the kiosk
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