iPhone officially coming to Russia via MegaFon & Vimplecom
September 2nd, 2008 by iPhoneTechZone
Following weeks of speculation, it is finally official; the Apple iPhone is finally legally coming to Russia.
MegaFon, the third largest mobile carrier in Russia has announced that it will begin selling the device in Russia before the Christmas holiday but did not add any further details about the deal.
Despite never officially being released in the nation, unauthorized sales have been growing exponentially with industry experts saying sales of unlocked iPhones are at about 20,000 per month now in the country. With over 500,000 estimated iPhone users, Russia has the third largest population of iPhone owners in the world behind the US and China.
In a separate announcement, Vimplecom, Russia’s second largest carrier, announced they to had reached an agreement with Apple to sell the phone. Many expect the region’s largest carrier MTS to announce a similar deal in the next week.
Analysts believe however that sales may initially slow, as Russian buyers are normally put off by being locked to a certain network.
“Typically Russian operators are not strong handset sellers, and users prefer to buy handsets separately from their mobile contracts,” said Konstantin Belov, a telecoms analyst at UralSib. “But the iPhone is very popular, and if mobile operators start subsidizing it, they will probably see strong demand.”
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After Russia the iPhone 3G coming to China!
August 30th, 2008 by iPhoneTechZone
After India launch and Russia plans; iPhone 3G would soon make it to China aswell. China’s biggest operator ‘China Mobile’ is believed to have cracked a deal with Apple. Though the iPhone is considered to be expensive (unsubsidized) for the masses in china, the operator plans to subsudize it (after procuring it for full price from Apple).
Previous talks between Apple and ‘China Mobile’ collapsed as Apple demanded a share of revenues from Telecom companies in all deals for the 1st Gen iPhone. However with the iPhone 3G, they have given up the revenue sharing system. This means that any carrier across the globe (including ATnT) needs to pay Apple its full price for the iPhone 3G. They may subsidise it later themselves.
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