iPhone invasion builds as Scandinavia, Eastern Europe fall

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 28 May 2008 02:43

Your IT - Mobility

The list of countries that will be getting the iPhone "later this year" has grown again. The increasingly popular Apple handset will soon be available in Nordic and Baltic nations.

With the now-customary one-line press release, "TeliaSonera today [May 27] announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia later this year."

TeliaSonera is based in Sweden and Finland, and also operates in the Nordic and Baltic countries, plus Spain and Eurasian countries including Russian and Turkey. It had around 115 million subscribers in 2007.

Other multi-country iPhone partners already announced include Orange (Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and certain African markets), Vodafone (Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey), and a group of SingTel-related carriers (Singapore, India, the Philippines and Australia).

Other tie-ups cover countries in the Americas and additional European nations, plus Egypt and Jordan.

The iPhone first went on sale in the US on June 29, 2007, followed by the UK and Germany on November 9, and France on November 29.