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View Full Version : Orange wins iPhone contract for France


scoobystu2
26-09-2007, 02:01 PM
France Telecom's Orange will sell Apple's iPhone handsets in France from the end of November, chief executive Didier Lombard said during an industry event in Hanoi on Thursday.

A company spokeswoman confirmed Lombard had unveiled the long-expected deal for France, which follows similar deals earlier this week to bring iPhones to Germany via Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and to the UK through Spanish-owned O2.

France Telecom said it was sure the unsubsidised phones, which combine Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and a web browser, would spur sales in France.

No further details were immediately available.

Innovative US consumer electronics company Apple broke into the mobile-phone industry by unveiling its iPhone in January, and has flouted European telecommunication conventions with its first European distribution deal. Most European mobile-phone customers, who sign up for 18-month to two-year contracts with wireless-services operators, are not used to paying extra for the latest handsets.

cont.
ref,
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39289549,00.htm

elofty
08-10-2007, 12:41 PM
Why did you get my hopes up there? I thought they had won the uk rights there...

scoobystu2
09-10-2007, 08:45 AM
Just seemed to me strange how Apple seem to be hedging their bets regarding the companies offering the Iphone in Europe.

bavlondon
09-10-2007, 11:20 AM
Orange, the wireless arm of France Telecom, is reportedly contemplating the prospect of not being able to launch Apple Inc.'s iPhone handset in time for the holiday amid growing tensions between the two companies.

"The risk we're evaluating this week is that Apple crosses France off," Les Echos quoted a source at Orange as saying in its Friday edition.

The French daily said the difficulties stem from a French law that would require the Apple handset to be sold both with and without contracts. This law would reportedly undermine the iPhone's exclusivity for Orange and Apple's demand of up to 30 percent of voice and data revenues.

A spokesperson for France Telecom went on record last month in claiming that the carrier had reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in France. The two firms were widely expected to announce launch plans during the final week of September along side Apple Expo Paris.

The Paris expo came and went without any such announcement, however. Meanwhile, Apple along with partners O2 and T-mobile officially announced plans to roll out the handset next month in the U.K. and Germany, respectively

scoobystu2
11-10-2007, 08:56 AM
Great post, any chance of the link please.

bavlondon
11-10-2007, 06:56 PM
It was taken from AppleInsider. Ill try and dig it up.