iPhone to go on sale in France today
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 28, 2007 at 12:28pm
France Telecom will launch the iPhone Wednesday night at 12 of its Orange stores, reports MarketWatch. Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nice, Nantes, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse will be welcoming iPhone fans from 6:30 pm onwards.
In Paris, Orange will open a new store on Avenue des Champs-Elysées. It will charge between 49 ($72) and 119 euros a month and 399 euros for the iPhone itself. Orange is also offering iPhone at 549 euros to customers who don’t wish to benefit from one of the four “Orange for iPhone” plans and at 649 euros without a plan, according to MarketWatch. The cost of unlocking the handset is 100 euros during the six months following the acquisition of the iPhone, France Telecom said.
Meanwhile, Apple has been accused of bungling the launch of the iPhone in Europe after one of its exclusive local partners was forced to make the device available on rival networks, notes MarketWeek. Analysts have questioned Apple’s strategy of entering into exclusive deals with operators in individual countries, saying the company has “underestimated” the difference between the US and European markets.
Apple has been forced to “unlock” the iPhone in Germany, scuppering its exclusive deal with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, after rival Vodafone claimed the agreement broke national competition laws. O2, Apple’s UK partner, is the only operator with an exclusive deal that has not had to “unlock” the phone.
However, Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi told MarketingWeek that she believes the problems in France and Germany may force Apple to rethink its strategy. The company has yet to sign exclusive deals in a number of countries, including Italy and Spain.
“Other countries will pick up on what has happened in France,” Milanesi told MarketingWeek. “If that happens Apple’s business model will be ruined.”
Apple has never confirmed the terms of the hotly contested exclusive deals, saying only that they are “multi-year.” However, Milanesi says, “Apple can’t grow its market share using the exclusive model and might be forced to change the way it does business. I think these latest problems will accelerate that.”
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
