Apple iPhone in India

Mobile telephony in India is set to reach the next stage of evolution after the two largest GSM operators, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, launched Apple’s iPhone last Friday.

Paradoxically, the Apple iPhone may have everything, yet nothing, to do with the changes it's about to unleash.

The Apple iPhone launch by the two service-providers came after weeks of hype and hoopla, but sadly, proved to be a damp squib. Although the smart phone's amazing new features kept the "wow factor" intact, the long-winding lines that sprang up in front of Apple iPhone stores elsewhere in Asia ahead of the launch were conspicuous by their absence.

The reason? The Apple iPhone pricing is so steep that several potential customers were massively disappointed, even outraged, going by local media reports. The princely sum of $720 (23,730 Baht) for the 8-gigabyte Apple iPhone and $840 (27,720 Baht) for the 16 GB version was too high for even such a cool gizmo.

What's worse, India has yet to auction the frequency spectrum required by mobile operators to start offering 3G, and a formal 3G launch is estimated to take up to a year. So even the rich, cool dudes who manage to get themselves an Apple iPhone will only be able to enjoy the low-speed applications that they had access to anyway on their phones earlier.

Needless to say, Apple needs to rework its Apple iPhone pricing in India if it hopes to attract a respectable number of customers in India. Even if it doesn't, other mobile operators and other handset makers probably have much to gain from the Apple iPhone's launch anyway.

The Apple iPhone's biggest contribution to India will likely be the power of persuasion it brings along. For every Apple iPhone user flaunting the smart phone's cool features, there could be at least a dozen others who may want to upgrade their own phones to handsets that offer more features, but are more modestly priced. And several others may be tempted to explore the world of value-added services, in addition to voice and text messages.