View this article at: http://dev.macnn.com/articles/08/06/02/times.3g.iphone.for.100
Monday, Jun 02, 2008 9:25am
Times: 3G iPhone for as lit...
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.