Vodafone secures Apple iPhone deal to rival Orange and O2

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 29-Sep-09, 09:30

LONDON - Vodafone has reached an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in the UK and Ireland in early 2010, just one day after Orange announced its own partnership with Apple, raising the prospect of a price war between rival operators.

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The announcement follows rival UK operator Orange announcement that it is to sell the iPhone, ending O2's exclusivity with the iconic smartphone and in the process becoming the first UK operator to break O2's stranglehold.

Beginning today, Vodafone UK and Vodafone Ireland customers can register their interest in iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS at a dedicated website.

Vodafone said it will reveal pricing, tariffs and availability information at a later date. Without securing the rights to the iPhone, Vodafone faced the prospect of losing hundreds of thousands of its customers to rivals O2 and Orange.

It is understood Vodafone only secured the agreement following secret talks late last night after Orange had dominated headlines throughout the day with its announcement.

The move is good news for UK consumers previously discouraged by the iPhone's upper end of the market price tag.

However, hopes for a Christmas price war were dashed by Vodafone's agreement coming into effect after the festive trading period.

For the past two years, the iPhone was only available on the 02 network in the UK. But Apple has recently moved to open up the phone to multiple networks across several countries in an attempt to maximise sales.

Yesterday, Apple announced the App Store was experiencing huge demand, with the total number of apps downloaded exceeding 2bn.

Comments

Lewis Cooper - 29/09/2009

Forget about a Christmas price war, who the hell spends that much on a gift for someone and assumes the recipient will be happy with the tariff that is chosen for them? Maybe some, but think about when most people that own an iPhone bought their iPhones. I purchased my 3G on the date of its release, as did thousands of others. My contract is up in January 2010, people slower to adopt will be February 2010. I'm still optimistic for a battle for contracts \(or contract retention) with current or would be iPhone customers. They'd be silly not fight for our custom as our loyalty for apple products, could transition to our carriers.

Conor Maples - 29/09/2009

Exciting times, although if you want it on the largest 3G Network in the UK and before Xmas, turn to Orange... :)

Glenn Southam - 29/09/2009

Going to be a difficult one for all three networks I think. What are their options? Swallow the cost of the iPhone to encourage customers? \(will Apple even allow this - they would want to preserve the premium pricing surely?). I really hope for a pricing battle but I just cannot see it, at least not for a while. Going to be interesting to see what they all do in terms of marketing and persuading a) existing customers to take up the iPhone and b) customers from other networks to switch. I have written a quick post about it on my blog: http://bit.ly/2lKE1I