France's Orange to get the iPhone starting 11/29

[Fire14]

Apple, France's Orange Confirm iPhone Partnership

Apple said Tuesday that French wireless carrier Orange, a France Telecom brand, will be the exclusive partner for the iPhone in France.

Orange will begin offering service for the iPhone when the device goes on sale in France on Nov. 29. Apple said the 8-gigabyte iPhone will cost EUR399, or about $565, when it goes on sale.

France will become the third European country, in addition to UK and Germany, to have the iPhone.

Apple shares rose 1.1% to $168.90 in afternoon trading.

Reports over recent weeks in the French press had suggested there were tensions between the two companies over what share of subscriber revenue Apple would get. Earlier Tuesday, French business weekly Challenges reported that France Telecom Chief Executive Didier Lombard visited Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs last week in Cupertino, Calif., to resolve the problems.

A spokeswoman for France Telecom declined to comment on how the revenue would be shared between the two companies, saying the clauses of the contract with Apple remained confidential. According to Challenges, the agreement will see Apple receiving 30% of subscriber revenue.

The iPhone will be sold in France both with and without a contract in accordance with French consumer law, the France Telecom spokeswoman said. While the iPhone will cost EUR399 with an Orange contract, the spokeswoman said the price without a contract had yet to be determined, adding that more details would be released closer to the launch date.

Apple, France's Orange Confirm iPhone Partnership

[Ironwalt]

France Tel dismisses iPhone fears, mum on details
Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:41am EDT

By Astrid Wendlandt

PARIS, Oct 17 (Reuters) - France's top telecoms operator France Telecom (FTE.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) has dismissed market concerns that a contract to sell iconic iPhone handsets in France is in jeopardy but declined to divulge tariff details until next month.

France Telecom said on Wednesday it did not plan to announce how much French customers would pay each month in subscriptions to get their hands on Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) touch screen iPhones until much closer to the handset's launch date on Nov. 29.

"Further information will be available in November near the commercial launch," a spokeswoman said.

France Telecom said on Tuesday it would sell iPhones -- which combine Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and Web browser -- for 399 euros ($566).

But the company declined to be drawn on whether customers would also have to sign up for an 18-month or two-year contract, similar to Apple deals struck in the UK and Germany. However, confirmation on Tuesday that Apple and France Telecom's Orange mobile arm had struck an exclusive sales deal put paid to market talk that the French deal, announced by Chief Executive Didier Lombard on September 20, looked in jeopardy.

Newspapers have speculated that Apple and Orange were struggling to agree terms to get the phones onto French high streets in time for Christmas in a country in which, as one source familiar with talks conceded, the law is "more complex than in the UK or Germany".


NAKED PHONES

In countries such as Britain, Germany and the United States, it is standard to offer top-of-the-range handsets as part of an 18-month to two-year deal that locks the phones into a specific mobile phone network operator for the duration of the contract.

This has traditionally been partly to ensure that operators recoup the hefty costs of subsidising handsets, that can run to hundreds of dollars, while wooing new contract customers onto their networks.

However, under French law, telecoms operators have to sell so-called "naked" phones -- which are not locked onto any network -- alongside handsets offered to contract customers.

A contract phone can also be unlocked for a small fee at the request of a French subscriber, which means that owners of an iPhone could in theory later use it on Orange's rivals SFR (VIV.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) or Bouygues Telecom (BOUY.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) network.

Orange conceded only that it would be also selling iPhones without subscriptions -- but at a much higher price.

Some industry analysts believe an iPhone without a SIM card could cost more than 900 euros, since contracts usually run for 18 months at about 30 euros a month. This would add some 540 euros in lost subcription revenue which the operator would want to recoup upfront if it sold the phone alone.

However, Hypermarket Leclerc in the east of France on Wednesday denied newspaper reports that it had imported iPhones from the United States and put them on sale for 999 euros.

In Britain, Telefonica's (TEF.MC: Quote, Profile, Research) O2 UK unit and handset retailer Carphone Warehouse (CPW.L: Quote, Profile, Research) will sell iPhones for 269 pounds ($547) to customers willing to sign an 18-month contract at 35, 45 or 55 pounds per month.

In Germany, Deutsche Telekom's (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) T-Mobile unit will sell the handsets for 399 euros to customers signing up for two years. In both countries, the phones will go on sale on Nov. 9.

[Fred333]

I have talekd to a couple of people overseas and they are comping at the bit to get a new iPhone.