France Telecom and Vodafone fight over iPhone distribution in Europe. Nothing official about Romania

Vineri, 9 mai 2008, 9:37 English | Business

The official launching of the iPhone in European countries has a very slow pace. The Apple gadget is available in three main European countries - Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Vodafone announced recently that five new markets will receive the phone, while France Telecom could add two more on the list. In Romania, the iPhone is sold only on the "black market" and, despite its presence for over 6 months, there are no signals about an official launching.

Vodafone announced on Tuesday that it signed agreements to distribute iPhone in ten new countries before the end of the year. Out of these, only five markets are in Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and the Czech Republic.

Orange, part of the France Telecom group, announced that it will make the product available in Poland and Spain and that there are discussions taking place for other countries as well. Romania might be on the list, but nothing was firmly set yet.

iPhone has been sold in Romania since fall 2007 and currently costs an average of 1,800 RON (some 500 euro), decoded, the general price ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 RON. Apple sold until now some 5.5 million phones and targets sales of 10 million units until the end of the year.