macnn
06/02/2008, 9:25am, EDT
Monday, June 2nd
Times: 3G iPhone for as little as £100
The price of the UK iPhone could drop to as little as £100 with the release of a new model by next month, say analysts quoted by The Times. The analysts agree with others who say that Apple is likely to allow a multitude of cellphone companies to subsidize the device, as its policy of revenue sharing under exclusive carrier deals is said to have proven ineffective outside of the United States. The Times notes that Britain, Germany and France sold a combined total of 330,000 iPhones by the end of December, when sources say predictions were somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000.
Analysts with UBS say they believe the 3G iPhone could sell for as little as €99 in mainland Europe, the same price as the lowest-cost 2.5G iPhone in Germany. The UK price is expected to be elevated, as Apple has a multi-year exclusive with O2, and thus only partial incentive to provide competitive pricing.
The UK's 3G iPhone is also expected to be released by July, according to a Times source, "very shortly" after the American one. After the 2.5G iPhone was released in the US, it took nearly five months for the device to come to the UK.
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Well
If analysts say it, it must be true.
I certainly would've gotten an iPhone for $100-150 US (assuming the usual UK mark-up here).
And if analysts say it will happen, then we know it'll happen.
If the pricing is true...
I will just drive down to Dublin to get my iPhone with the lower euro price tag.
Pah, rubbish.
The man from the Times is just guessing. He's certainly not using his head. All UK iPhone stocks are sold out and have been for weeks. If Apple leave it till July, it will have effectively taken the iPhone out of circulation for nearly 2 months! That's an insane amount of time. It makes no business sense and I just don't believe it.
Since when have the Times become an authority on tech related new stories any way?