Vodafone to introduce Apple iPhone in India

Noor En Ahmed

New Delhi

Mon, 21 Apr 2008: 

Vodafone India, the arm of UK based world’s largest wireless telecom company Vodafone, is likely to carry much awaited, versatile and Macintosh operating system based Apple’s iPhone in the coming September as per rumours spread in the country.

According to rumos, Vodafone India is going to officially introduce Apple’s iPhone, a combination of ipod, wireless Internet and mobile phone in India, while Vodafone has officially denied any such plan.

But, from the various internal official sources, Vodafone has signed a deal with Apple to carry iPhone in India ‘officially’, which is known as one the biggest market of mobile phones in the globe.

As per TRAI report, the number of mobile phone users will reach to 500 millions by 2010 and still have a critical market to exploit it for many companies.

Apple has targeted to sell 10-millions mobile by the end of this year. It’s selling in European countries are slowly decreasing while China, the biggest market of mobiles have already denied to carry it.

Initially, it would be in 8GB of capacity with price range of Rs 27,000 to 28,000 while its enhanced version of 16 GB model will be launched by mid 2009 after viewing the first version’s response. However, iPhone is already available in Indian grey market in the lesser prices of Rs 20,000 to 22,000.

But, its locking code does not allow to exploit its all functionality. It runs only one network and Macintosh Operating System. AT&T has been developed software for it.

Apple has already opened its first store in Mumbai while going to open its second and third showroom in Bangalore and Chennai very soon.

After launching in the US market in last June 29, Apple’s iPhone has gained huge popularity and had sold 1.4-millions of handset by end of November 2007. Its exclusive one network running option has encouraged the hackers to unlock the handset. Several hackers became successful to unlock it.

After some modifications, Apple has again launched it in the market but could not restrain the hackers.

However, viewing its exception quality, the experts believe that it will gain immense popularity in the ever growing Indian market.

Apple’s iPhone is an amalgamation of camera phone, iPod and wireless Internet system that provides visual voicemail and text messaging, local Wi-Fi connectivity, e-mailing and web browsing.

It is sleek, compact, with multi-touch screen equipped with virtual keyboard and buttons. It is a quad-band cellphone that works on GSM standard. Moreover, it has a better technology of browsing the net with EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) that provides up to three times more data capacity than GPRS (General Packet Radio Service).