Apple’s 3G iPhone will be available immediately after CEO Steve Jobs announces it at the WorldWide Developers Conference on June 9, a confidential source has told the popular Web site Gizmodo.
“Someone very, very close to the launch” informed the site that availability of the new phone won’t be delayed until year’s end, as some rumors had speculated. The new phone will be available for purchase worldwide by mid-June, Gizmodo reported.
The site says the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica will sell the phone at the launch of its new megastore in a historic building in Madrid’s Gran Via. The 3G iPhone will be available throughout Spain within a day of the opening.
New Pricing Policies
Other European countries will see similar launches of the new iPhone in the mid-June time frame. If the report is accurate, American consumers should be able to buy the phone within that period, if not before.
Compatibility with 3G networks isn’t the only thing new about the new iPhones, Gizmodo said. According to the Web site, carriers in some countries will no longer be selling the phone at a fixed price. Gizmodo said the change is a “logical step” because carriers in the highly competitive European market need to use the popular iPhone to attract customers.
The new iPhone will be integrated into carriers’ usual pricing policies, with point-based trade-ups, discounts for carrier switchers and other service-based packages, Gizmodo said.
3G ‘Essential’ for Europe
Delivering a 3G version of the phone is important for Apple in Europe but the company still faces an uphill climb, said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research, in a telephone interview. “It’s an essential competitive feature, but they’ve had tougher going in Europe in part because of the entrenchment of Nokia in Europe,” he said. “In contrast to the U.S., people are fairly happy with their Nokia phones.”
In the U.S., most consumers probably won’t care about the distinction between 3G and 2.5G. “Early adopters care, and there will be an uptick in demand among those people,” Sterling said, “but the broad public will just understand that its faster.”
As for rumors about pricing, Sterling thinks the pricing strategy is “shifting.” For one thing, there have been a string of nonexclusive carrier deals in Europe. “Consistent with that is the idea is eliminating the price barrier,” he said. A recent study found that 50 percent of iPhone buyers switched to AT&T to be able to use an iPhone. “AT&T may want to goose that by making the price point more attractive,” he said.
“There is more conventional carrier pricing coming,” Sterling said. “If they want to mainstream the iPhone, they have to overcome the barriers of exclusivity and pricing.”
Related Posts
May 21st, 2008 at 5:58 am
Look forward the release urgently! apple launch it soon