iPhone Coming to India Next Year?

Jul 5, 2007 While reports continue to pour-in from across-the-globe about Apple Computer's newly-launched iPhone, surprisingly, there is hardly any buzz about it back home...

And why should there be any? Apple, in trademark fashion, continues to be tight-lipped about the India launch of it's gizmo...

However, we got sources within Apple India, who wish to remain unnamed, to reveal that Apple's futuristic phone-cum-iPod will hit Asian shores -- first Japan, followed by India and China sometime in the first quarter of 2008. In Europe, the iPhone will go on sale sometime in September this year.

In India, service providers including Vodafone, Airtel, RCom, even Wipro are in the running to win Apple's iPhone contract, the sources said.

They added that the device would most probably cost in the region of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000.

Some Apple authorized resellers had a slightly different story. They said that the official release is in March next year. However, that some lucky customers might be able to grab an iPhone from the grey market within a week or two, and that the device would come for around Rs 25,000.

Apparently, some dealers have already ordered about ten to twelve iPhones, and should be getting them soon.

Otherwise the resellers said there are about a dozen inquiries after the iPhone on any given day. And not only that, but that the inquiries have been coming-in for the past four to five months.

A tech enthusiast said it is 'very disappointing' that Apple should launch its iPhone so late in one of the biggest markets. Especially when 'everyone's drooling over the device even without having seen it,' he added. The biggest USP of the iPhone seems to be its multi-tap interface, he said.

Another geek looked unfazed. He said most people were comfortable in the knowledge that they could expect the iPhone to be on the grey market within a week or two, just like it happened with Sony's PS3.

A not-so-into-technology source gave a completely different perspective. He quoted John Naisbitt, who famously said, "With luxury goods, here is a paradox: Exclusivity is the name of the game, and if these goods become common and less costly, they lose their exclusivity -- and their market."

So is that what all this is all about? Well, only Apple can answer that question... convincingly...