France squeezes the pips out of Apple’s business model
Rating: clash of cultures
By Annie Turner
France Telecom’s CEO, Didier Lombard, said this morning that Orange expects to sell 100,000 iPhones between the official launch tomorrow evening and the end of the year. Not that huge a target, considering we’ve got Christmas in between. The question is, what will happen in the longer term?
Apple has already run into trouble in Germany where Vodafone is suing T-Mobile, accusing it of anti-competitive behaviour over its exclusive deal with Apple and in France, Apple is legally obliged to sell unlocked phones, which is entirely contrary to its model of exclusive distribution with a single favoured operator.
No price has been disclosed for the unlocked model in France, but at EUR 399, the iPhone-with-a-24 month-Orange contract is very expensive, in a market that subsidises most handsets so that most cost less than EUR 100, according to Ovum.
Then there are people like me who are waiting for the next generation that has the glitches ironed out and can handle 3G. In the meantime, I use my HTC Touch, albeit with gritted teeth, particularly as GoMo’s founder, Bena Roberts, has already got an iPhone and is delirious about the user interface. She would be. She’s used to a PC.
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