China and Russia to get bite of Apple iPhone 3G sales this year

Davey Winder
Tuesday, 02 September 2008 20:49

Your IT - Mobility

File under better late than never. It seems that both China and Russia will dance at the official iPhone 3G ball this year after all...

There is no shortage of iPhones in Russia. Some reports suggest that there as many as half a million older iPhones in circulation.

That would make it amongst the biggest of iPhone markets when you venture outside of the United States. You can even buy an iPhone 3G, if you don't mind paying around USD $1000 for a gray import.

What Russians do not have, for now, is official access to the iPhone 3G. That is due to change before the year is out.

Hot on the heels of announcements by the other big mobile network operators over there that deals had been inked with Apple, MegaFon has now confirmed it too will start selling the Jesus Phone before the end of the year.

It is thought that sales will start in October, and one Russian newspaper has apparently reported that the agreements Apple now has in place with the top three Russian mobile providers requires them to sell millions of handsets for the next three years.

The Vedomosti newspaper says that MTS must sell one million every year for three years, and Vimplecom and MegaFon one and a half million every year for two years.
 
China Mobile, meanwhile, is reported to be close to inking an agreement with Apple that would see the iPhone 3G launching in the largest mobile phone market in the world: China.

The 21 Century Business Herald in China has claimed that talks will conclude soon, with Apple apparently being persuaded to drop its demands for the usual revenue-sharing model.

Perhaps the lure of those 600 million mobile phone users proved too much, even for Steve Jobs to resist...