There's no such thing as: $99 iPhones, free lunches, Santa Claus, etc.
Posted in: Beep Beep
Posted by: Tom Gara on June 10, 2009 3:08 PM
Tags:
etisalat, iphone, mobile, prices
Much ado has been made of Apple's new $99 price point for the iPhone 3G. You can safely ignore all of this. Rinse and repeat - there is no such thing as a $99 iPhone.
First, this number, like the $199 figure bandied about before, is the price on the American AT&T network: locked, after subsidies, on a two year contract, bought with an American credit card. Once the phone gets out of that little economic fishbowl, it becomes a whole lot more expensive - more on local prices after the jump:
The cheapest that you'll find unlocked iPhones for these days
is around the Dh2200 ($600) mark, smuggled out of markets like Italy
and Hong Kong where they are sold unlocked, with low markups, by
super-competitive operators. Remember that in the UAE, a prepaid iPhone
costs Dh2600.
I've been trying to get a comment out of
Etisalat about this all day, with no luck. The best I have got is them
saying that they are in talks with Apple about the pricing, and would
also need approval from the telecom regulator for any price
cut - although my guess is that approval will come very easily.
Unless Etisalat decides to embark on a bold new low-cost strategy -
possible, but unlikely - the best we can hope for is probably the
iPhone 3G discounted down to the same proportions as what it is today.
That means if the $200 US AT&T deal translates into Dh2600 over the
counter in the UAE, then the $99 iPhone might end up somewhere around
Dh1300. The other thing is, the pricing of Etisalat's plans - which
subsidise the upfront handset cost in return for a 12-month committment
- could get better.
But otherwise, it's safe to assume that the only person who will ever offer you a $99 iPhone is a Somali pirate.
Good luck with getting Etisalat (or their PR company) to say anything that you can use in public :-) For a (tele)communications company they sure have issues with communicating.
Yes the $99 is a bit of a marketing gimmick, of course, and it won't happen here. But hopefully it means a cheaper iPhone available here at some point.
It'll be interesting to see what Etisalat will do for people on existing iPhone 3G contracts, especially considering the mess AT&T is in.
I don't understand why people have such a love/hate relationship with this device.
First off, no one is being forced to buy it. The pricing scheme, albeit relatively extravagant, reflects studies concerned with disposable income and, as anything, are set to find a balance between market penetration and maximum revenue for the provider. Of course it would be more expensive in the UAE than the US. If anything, it reflects the iPhone's (and indeed all Apple products') very nature as a status symbol.
Secondly, Etisalat has not gotten approval for anything that spans beyond a 12-month contract, which would have allowed them to subsidise the phone to a much larger degree.
Finally, consider other markets than the US. In NZ for example, on a maxed-out plan, with an independent telecommunications company you get a 16GB iPhone 3G for $349 and pay $250 a month, which nets you 600 anytime minutes, 600 texts, and 1GB of data. That works out to $264 for the phone and $189 for the plan in US currency. Sure, the phone is cheaper, but for that sort of plan you burn a hole in your bank account over 72 months.
Tom:
It's not nice to flat out lie to your readers, especially in your header. My legal name is Santa Claus, and I'm a full-time volunteer children's advocate. Visit TheSantaClausFoundation dot org sometime and become better informed.
Blessings to all, Santa Claus
Nice one
Surely if anyone can deliver a $99 iPhone then it is Santa Claus.
Oh.
Etisalat's current prices are very smilar to SINGTEL's plans in Singapore if u luk at them and I am only guessing that the iphone 3G would go cheaper to 2000 dhs with the intro of iphone 3GS
In reality there are websites stating that the phone costs Apple in only parts cost upto 175 dollars and then the assembly plus shipping plus their profit plus the telecom operator profits thats if i even buy the prepaid plan one from Etisalat dont expect anything cheaper than 2000-2200 a 99$ iphone in US is a big fuss start adding taxes and their whopping 90+$ monthly plan for two years and u will start liking what UAE is offering.