Buy Apple iPhone 3G in India on August 22.
Apple’s iPhone, the touch screen handset that acquired a
cult status in the US and other western countries, will be
available to Indian mobile users through private telecom
operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar from August 22,
giving competitors like Nokia, Samsung and others a run for
their money.
Millions of Airtel and Vodafone Essar subscribers would be
able to purchase the iPhone at their retail counters from
August 22. While Bharti Airtel has 69 million subscribers,
Vodafone Essar has 49 million.
“iPhone has been an iconic technological revelation of this
year and Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and
customer delight in the Indian telecom sector,” President
Bharti Airtel mobile services Sanjay Kapoor said in a
statement. Vodafone Essar executives also said their launch
date of iPhone is same.
IPhone is embedded with all 3G (third generation mobile
telephony) features and is twice as fast as the existing
mobile phones. The phone also has in-built GPS system, that
facilitates as a navigation and positioning tool.
The Indian mobile operators are not disclosing the price of
iPhone at this point. Analysts said Indian operators may
not subsidise the handset, which is a case in US as
operators there make up for that with their call charges.
They charge rates like 25 cents a minute. In India, the
charge is 1.5 to 2 cents a minute.
If this is taken into consideration, essentially iPhone
could be priced somewhere around $550 or Rs 31,000.
Leading cell phone makers like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung
have stepped up their R&D efforts to bring feature rich
phones in India to compete iPhones.


