3G Iphone in India through Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel and Apple(R) today announced that they will be bringing the highly anticipated iPhone(TM) 3G to customers in India later this year. iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.
“We are delighted with the opportunity to bring the innovative iPhone 3G to India,” said Manoj Kohli, president and CEO, Bharti Airtel. “As India’s leading telecom operator, Bharti Airtel has always stood for innovation and customer delight. With our reach across the country and iPhone’s revolutionary features, we have a valuable proposition for our customers in India.”
“We are thrilled to be working with Bharti Airtel, India’s leading integrated telecom company, to bring iPhone 3G to millions of mobile customers in India,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s COO. “We can’t wait to get this revolutionary product in the hands of even more people around the world.”
Airtel customers will be able to purchase iPhone 3G at Airtel Relationship Centers. Details of pricing and availability will be announced at a later date.
*Based on 3G and EDGE testing. Actual speeds vary by site conditions.
Bharti Airtel Limited, a group company of Bharti Enterprises, is India’s leading integrated telecom services provider with an aggregate of 66.69 million customers as of end of April 2008, consisting of 64.37 million mobile customers. Bharti Airtel has been rated among the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007.
Bharti Airtel is structured into three strategic business units — Mobile services, Telemedia services and Enterprise services. The mobile business provides mobile and fixed wireless services using GSM technology across 23 telecom circles. The Telemedia business provides broadband and telephone services in 94 cities and is foraying into the IPTV and DTH segments. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to carriers. All these services are provided under the Airtel brand. Airtel’s high-speed optic fibre network currently spans over 73,787 kms covering all the major cities in the country. The company has two international landing stations in Chennai that connect two submarine cable systems — i2i to Singapore and SEA-ME-WE-4 to Europe. For more information, visit http://www.bhartiairtel.in/.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple’s PR website (http://www.apple.com/pr/), or call Apple’s Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.
(C) 2008 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh and iPhone are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Source: Apple & pr news
Tags: 3G, Apple, bharti airtel, India, iphone
11. June 2008 at 11:52 am :
A single model of Nokia, the N95, sold around 5.5 million units from March 2007 to date as against Apple iPhone’s six million units sold since its launch in June 2007.
The Finnish handset giant, however, has never been able to cope with the mystique that surrounds Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ iPhone, which has been illegally imported and unlocked by hundreds of Indians - corporate chiefs and celebrities included.
Jobs has now announced a 3G version of the device with full global positioning system for just $199 (around Rs 8,400) for the 8GB model and $299 (Rs 12,600) for the 16GB version.
Compare this with the Rs 25,500 price tag of a Nokia E90 Communicator or Rs 19,000 of HTC’s latest mobile phone Touch Diamond. The slashed prices are expected to lift its sales, and Jobs hopes to sell 10 million units worldwide by 2010.
The new iPhone will go on sale on July 11 in 70 countries. The Indian telecom operators include Airtel and Vodafone, but the exact iPhone prices and launch dates for India have not been disclosed. Besides, the government is yet to sort out the 3G spectrum issue.
Nevertheless, iPhone lovers are excited. For instance, the latest Bollywood heartthrob, Sikander Kher — who unlocked the iPhone himself - lauds Apple’s pricing.
“I paid Rs 15,000 for the older 8GB model, which now seems obsolete. At just Rs 8,500 for the 8GB model, iPhone could beat Nokia and others hands down,” he says.
Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games, and Dhruv Shringi, managing director, Yatra, too are eager to dump their BlackBerries for an iPhone. “I own an unlocked iPhone but the new 3G phone would be a great device while travelling to countries like Europe,” notes Bhargava.
Shringi, on the other hand, is quite keen to buy the 8GB iPhone. Bhargava along with his 10 colleagues, swear by the iPhone’s browser and touch-based user interface.
R Subramanian, managing director, Subhiksha, too says he will switch to the new 3G phone, once 3G is introduced in India. Gartner predicts there will be around 106 million 3G and 58 million GPS-enabled devices in the Asia-Pacific region by 2009.
But there are few like Shankar Mahadevan, music composer and singer, who switched to Nokia keypads after trying hard to master iPhone’s touch interface.
“Having bought an unlocked iPhone, I had limited usage of the phone. But since I am an SMS-savvy person, I could not get around with the Apple touch screen.”
Business standard, India.