Apple nears pan-European iPhone deals

Jonny Evans
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March 04, 2008
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As Apple prepares for its iPhone announcement this week, the company appears close to inking deals to introduce its product across many additional European territories.

iPhone is presently only available in the UK, France and Germany; now the company is nearing deals to offer it in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland (done), Italy and Spain - even the Nordics might get some love.  Lithuania and Denmark? sure!

Fresh reports claim the iPhone will launch in Switzerland on April 4. The Apple device will be made available exclusively from Swisscom.  Keep in mind, Hardmac had a very similar (actually much better) fake last time.

Benoit Scheen, chief of Belgian’s second-largest mobile network Mobistar, last month said he hoped to reach a distribution deal with Apple for iPhone distribution this year. Next door in the Netherlands, KPN has recently been identified as Apple’s likely network partner.

iPhone is expected to be made available through T-Mobile in Austria and O2 in Ireland, with the Irish launch scheduled for March 14. Italy (with Telecom Italia) and Spain (with Telefonica) are reportedly also close to launch.

Apple has also been in talks with DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank and Softbank to agree a Japanese launch of the product, though it remains unclear which of the three operators has won the prize.

The company’s chief operating office Tim Cook last week said Apple “is not wedded” to an exclusive arrangement in order to launch the product in every territory it wants to penetrate.

Apple continues to experiment with its business model. France’s LeFigaro claims electronics retailer FNAC is in discussion to distribute the iPhone through its network of French shops. That’s similar to Apple’s UK deal with Carphone Warehouse to widen availability of the device..

All these tidbits may go some way to explaining Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s seeming public absence since Macworld Expo. He’s instrumental to any final deal with mobile phone networks.

(yes we know the image is faaake - even more fake than their last one!!)

Comments (22)

Pablo Pons Bordes (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 9:30am

I don't know if some one notice that before but the iPhone at the picture looks smaller than the normal iPhone and on the icons are 3 by 3 instead of 4 by 4 and at the dock are only 3 icons instead of 4.

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 9:37am

whats up with that picture is it just me or is the iphone strangely proportioned the icons just fit three in a row and are a lot bigger why would they put a photoshoped picture in their public advertisements?

Paul Howland (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 10:03am

This presumably also means the release of a 3G version - there is no longer any EDGE network in the Netherlands - otherwise the iPhone would have to fall back on a sloooooow old GPRS connection.

Paul (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 10:13am

Damn. Lucky. I phone available all these places, but I still cant get it because I live in VT.

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 10:13am

so you actually think they are going to release the current iphone in april and then turn around and release the 3g iphone in may (according to your previous post)? if so, we are going to see a lot of pissed off european customers

that's why i am almost sure the 3g iphone won't come until june or july. you can bet on it. it doesn't make sense for them to release the 3g iphone yet

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 2:12pm

a: that is not swisscom's logo. if you're gonna something like that at least take the few minutes it takes to look into it (www.swisscom.ch)

b: lithuania isn't nordic; far from. it's eastern european.

but i'm pretty excited nonetheless. hope they release it in nl before or with the 3g iphone

admin | March 04, 2008 - 2:45pm

a.   We said it was fake 2 times.

b. we never called Lituania nordic.

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 2:56pm

It is indeed the new Swisscom logo, everywhere in the streets it is possible to see the new marketing strategy
Somewhere last year I read that the chip that could provide 3G and good battery life to the iPhone would be available on March 08, this together with the N argument could correlate to a possible 3G iPhone also.
Nice is that the iPhone on the Swisscom poster seems smaller

Coward (not verified) | March 04, 2008 - 5:39pm

I have an interesting hypothesis concerning bringing the iPhone to Asia. Apple has been rumored to have encountered significant resistance from Chinese and Japenese cell phone companies regarding revenue sharing. According to media reports, this issue has resulted in conversations breaking down. This likely could be an issue that Apple cannot win. Their other option would be to have to release an open iPhone that is compatible with all networks in these. However, before this is done, they will have to ink as many deals as possible in other countries. If cell phone carriers see that Apple is willing to forgoe revenue sharing to break into a significant market, it could cost them hundreds of millions in profit. My guess is that they will ink as many deals as possible, then release the iPhone in China, India, and Japan in 1Q fiscal year 2009 (9/08-12/08).

Pullman (not verified) | March 05, 2008 - 12:54am

Apple needs to rethink its country-specific monopolisation; it worked in the Soviet Union but today's globalised world has not place for such practices. Also, there's no need to further hype the iPhone by increasing the desirability. Just launch it worldwide on all networks. It would take two months for total dominance. Without such an approach the cracking and jailbraking will continue and Apple will lose further profits.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | November 25, 2008 - 9:42pm

The iPhone is definitely the best phone that has ever been made. I cannot think of any blackberry or any cell phone that can outweigh the quality and features. I'm glad Apple developed a great phone.

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Anonymous Coward (not verified) | March 05, 2008 - 5:06am

But when is it coming to Japan???

 

The iPhone will never be the dominant phone.  It is way too expensive, most people want the phone for free.  The main reason I want it is because of the 3rd party software, lots of cool developers making lots of cool useful applications for it.

 

in Japan, phones tend to run the cellphone company's own OS.  So only really can get a few Java apps.

Christy R Lair (not verified) | May 18, 2008 - 8:03am

Thanks for the info. BTW I've marked it @ http://www.searchallinone.com/Other/Flock_rocks_or_Chris_Messina_is_a_de...

Stephen (not verified) | June 18, 2008 - 12:24am

Launch of iPhone is one of the greatest achievement in mobile industry. This is a golden era in the field of mobile technology and every day you can find new technology and advance features in mobile phones. The prices of mobile phones are also decreasing day by day.

Besanto (not verified) | July 07, 2008 - 5:19am

I think Apple iphone is going to hottest choice of not only in Europe but all over world. As we know this phone has a latest feature. In Ireland this phone is coming with O2 mobile phones. I hope we will get some excellent free gifts also with this Apple iPhone.

shan | July 07, 2008 - 5:22am

The iPhone is the latest mobile phone at the mobile industry, it has latest features according to Motorola Mobile Phones and samsung phones etc..

Mobile Phone Blog (not verified) | July 11, 2008 - 12:21am

Apple iPhone is going to be smashing hit again!! O2 Mobile and Carphonewarehouse in UK have run out pre-orders in just minutes they opened the website and even O2's website got crashed because of the visitors. So, I can definitely say that this phone is the king of all mobile phones.

9to5Mac Noob (not verified) | August 06, 2008 - 1:47am

iphone 'opponent rise

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Kishor (not verified) | September 02, 2008 - 7:54am

Great news! Recently iPhone has launched its products in India also. But here people reviews about iPhone is something different. What people say look around it : http://appleiphoneandipod.blogspot.com/

iPhone (not verified) | November 14, 2008 - 5:31am

iPhone - MobileSift Review.

iPhone (not verified) | November 14, 2008 - 5:40am

T-Mobile G1 is a better mobile phone.

King (not verified) | November 18, 2008 - 2:38am

Great article
but i prefer Nokia 96 to iphone as it has much more advanced features compared to Iphone
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