All Articles Tagged singapore

Back on July 11, the iPhone 3G launched in 22 countries. Along with much fanfare, hippie attention seekers, lines that would stretch out for weeks on end, and constantly crashing servers. But since Apple sold about a million of the hot new handsets that weekend, you just knew they were going to do it again.

“Today” brings phase 2, where 21 more countries are supposed to come online with the iPhone 3G. (Officially Aug. 22nd, which may or may not be “today” to you depending on your timezone). How are things going so far? Reader Anton was gracious enough to send in this report (thanks Anton!):

Now it’s midnight in Estonia and I’m at the iphone launch event. No special frenzy, about 1000 people in one supermarket, a couple of DJs and a lot of light. There’s just two plans offered: us$55 and $89. First one includes 100 minutes, 100 SMS and 100 Mb; the other one – 250 of each. Every extra megabyte will cost $.25 and $.21 respectively. The phone itself is $267/8Gb and $396/16Gb with $55 plan and $149/8Gb and $278/16Gb with $89 plan.

Ouch! When will telcos worldwide realize what Henry Ford did almost 100 years ago. Mass pricing leads to mass adoption which leads to mass profits. Sheesh!

So are you standing in line right this very minute, ready to get your shiny new iPhone today? Is your carrier up? Is iTunes activating? Let us know how things are going!

And if your market still doesn’t have the iPhone 3G, just remember that Apple promised another 30+ countries — a grand total of 70+ — for 2008, which is now set to include Russia via MTS. That pretty much leaves China standing alone as the last major market sans carrier deal… for now.

20 countries launched the iPhone 3G back on July 11 (okay, zut, France straggled a bit), and Apple hopes to launch some 21 more just 6 short weeks later — only minus some iTunes authentication failures and supply shortages, no doubt.

From iLounge, we learn who’s next:

Romania, India, the Philippines, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, four additional countries will see launches. Latvia and Lithuania will see the device launched on TeliaSonera’s LMT and Omnitel services, respectively, while T-Mobile and Orange will launch the iPhone in Slovakia, and SingTel will begin offering the device in Singapore.

This will bring the grand total to some 43, with almost 30 more still slated by close of year, 2008. Looks like Apple may need those 40 million units after all, doesn’t it?

Thanks to eagle-eyed reader Janric for the tip:

Globe’s Head for Consumer Wireless Business Ferdinand Dela Cruz announced today that Globe, SingTel, Bharti Airtel, and Optus have signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to the Philippines, Singapore, India, and Australia later this year.

Philippines is new, Singapore is now confirmed, and given that Vodafone has already announced Australia and India, this would make it the second and third confirmed non-exclusive territories after Italy.

Score board says:

Okay folks, who’s next?

Apple COO Tim Cook said we’d see the iPhone in Asia by the end of 2008, and see it we did in China and Hong Kong! Er… oops, he meant officially, didn’t he? Well, then, Ars Technica (via Thompson) reports that SingTel might just make Singapore the first Asian nation to introduce Poppa Jobs’ pocket universe-dent’er:

The information comes from “industry sources,” and indicates that the iPhone will appear in Singapore in September. The sources don’t have any information on whether or not a package deal that includes Australia and Thailand has been reached, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see news or rumors concerning those countries start popping up. SingTel and Apple aren’t talking just yet (not that we expected them to).

Singapore allegedly boasts over 10,000 unlocked iPhones already, but if they go legit that’ll bring our official score to:

Rumors (via Apple Insider) suggest Apple may even be willing to drop its revenue sharing model in exchange for the up-front carrier subsidies more common to the industry.

What gives? No Visual Voicemail in Ireland. No unlimited data in Austria. And now no revenue sharing in Singapore? Is Apple getting beaten down by the very carrier domination they seemed so poised to uproot? Or is Apple’s business model really, as Tim Cook suggested, flexible as an 8 year old gymnast when it comes to getting the iPhone in countries?

Maybe when the Canadian model finally debuts with no Visual Voicemail, a heft 1MB of data, and Rogers’ branded WAP browser in lieu of Safari, all for the low-low price of $199 a month for 100 min., we’ll have our answer!