RSSApple's iPhone 3G gets ho-hum response in Poland and India
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published August 22, 2008, 1:03 PM
Mobile service provider Orange Poland this week hired actors to help "warm up" reception to Apple's latest phone. Meanwhile, in India, a new iPhone 3G costs the US equivalent of $712 -- another indicator of barriers in some emerging markets.
Although earlier launches of Apple's iPhone 3G created big stirs in the US, northern Europe, and Japan, in a later wave of rollouts this week, the reaction has been more ho-hum in countries like India and like Poland -- a place where actors actually got paid to stand in line.
Wireless operator Orange Poland has openly admitted to hiring actors to pose as avid iPhone customers, as a marketing ploy to help "warm up" the rollout in Poland, according to accounts in the foreign press and international wire services.
The price of the iPhone 3G and the availability of both Internet access and 3G wireless networks all appear to be factors that could impact adoption of Apple's phone in emerging markets.
"Not just Apple, but its partners in India -- Bharti Airtel and Vodafone -- will have to play their roles to perfection for their customers to enjoy the iPhone," says a report in the Economic Times of India.
"India is amongst the few markets where the partner telcos are spending huge sums training thousands of their employees to activate the iPhone. This [is] because, unlike their western counterparts, Indian customers cannot be expected to activate the phone online," according to the Indian newspaper.
"Low Internet and PC penetration is a roadblock here; and even amongst those in metros and large cities who own PCs, only a small minority have Apple's iTunes on their systems. The other catch is slow Internet speeds which can frustrate users attempting to download iTunes." Poland seems to be facing some of the same problems. As of December 2007, only 36.6% of Poland's residents had any Internet access at all, according to numbers compiled by Internetworldstats.com. That compares with 66.4% for the UK and 88% for Norway, for instance.
Meanwhile, although some Americans have been willing to pay something in the $1,000 neighborhood on eBay for an iPhone, many residents of poorer nations are likely to be hard-pressed to buy an iPhone 3G even from wireless operators. In India, where the overall cost of living is much lower than in Western countries, but pricing from operators is much higher, initial popularity of Apple's phone is limited mainly to affluent professionals and children in families with inherited wealth, according to other reports. "It's official. Vodafone will sell the 8 GB 3G iPhone for 31,000 rupees ($712) and the 16 GB model for 36,100 rupees ($828). And this for a 3G model when India does not even have 3G services yet," wrote a blogger for Reuters India.
"The price of the 8 GB model in the US is $199 and $299 for the 16 GB model. So is buying the iPhone in India worth it or will the grey market rule? Who will buy the new iPhone? All those who had pre-booked? The ones who want to get the latest gizmo on day one of its official launch in India or the geeks who cherish anything Apple?"
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|2007 estimated per capita ANNUAL income GDP for India is US $937. you still wont want to target a $712 phone at a family even if both the partners made $10000 each a year typing computer code, unless the employer was paying for it
Factor that with the facts that
* Cheaper "unlocked" phones are available for equivalent of $100 (there is no such thing as an unlocked phone. all phones are made free. its the north american and european operators who lock them to get their customers into their slavery contracts in the free modern world of west)
* no 3G is service available
* the daily lives and the spending profiles are nowhere close to that of the west. (The west should really take their moment and study the indian culture and the mentality of the indian consumer)
and add in these facts
* you would get locked into a phone with high initial cost and monthly bills
* the phone does not offer indian languages probably (yep, ever since the british had a stronghold on india some of the country speaks english very well. even though it is a software powerhouse for most countries of the world in the respective country's local language, availability of local language software in any indian language is almost ZERO)
* the iphone reportedly had a battery that is soldered inside and you need to go back to apple to even have the battery replaced
* you could easily get mugged on the street if the wrong person found out you had an expensive iphone ... OR what if you simply lost or broke it
* why would an indian consumer pay 90cents to apple itunes to purchase an mp3 of a indian song made in india and uploaded to a non indian server, and give 10 cents to the music company? they get their music literally for free & ipods which are cheaper do a good job of playing the music like all other much cheaper mp3 players (i dunno if the costs are the other way around or different, irrespective of the numbers... the question holds)
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|I was not accurate about the battery. thie new 3G iphone does not have a soldered battery but hey ...
* still no slots for adding memory cards like those 8GB micro SDHC or 32GB SDHC cards
* no Java and flash support ...
* no support for voice dialing? (voice command dialing)
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|I think that the bosses of Orange are morons. There are 4 mobile operators (Orange, Era, Plus, Play) and 12 MVNOs (something like Virgin or Tesco in the UK) in the country. Besides of Orange the phone is offered by Era (even in prepaid!) and Play. The thing is - what neapolis noticed - that Poles do not like proprietary solutions when you are forced to some thing in a certain way, but love if they can play with/tune up the device/service. It is not problem of money, e.g. I could afford the phone but I will not buy it. Over my dead body! I do not want to buy anything what is worth spending the money, lacks some basic functionality, has a killer switch and you cannot even change the battery by yourself. Most my friends think the same.
BTW, I think that American managers are really narrow-minded (do not take it personally, please). Apple (with the ill iTunes Poland) is one of many American companies like eBay, AOL which slighted and completely lost the market (look at www.aol.pl - it is a disaster!). Actually, the only American company which is a success and imediately comes to my mind is Google. Poles love Gmail. So do I!
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|Poland - where i come from - is a very tech-savvy country (nr 1 in won IT-competitions since many years etc.). And generally people tend to more like PCs than Apple products because they can do more stuff with it. It's about the openness of the products. The price is not that much of an issue any more as people have gotten richer very fast in the last years. I bet when Google's Android is out, there will be masses running out to get the phones and see what they can actually "do" with it. Thats the polish spirit. Freedom.
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|I'm confused - isn't the $200 iPhone in the US subsidised? i.e. you HAVE to buy it on a plan? Or can you just walk into an Apple store and walk out with a phone for $200? If so, why isn't everyone just buying American stock on eBay?
I mean technically the iPhone in Australia is $0 - but you've got to take it on a subsidised contract with one of four carriers. Otherwise you buy it outright for about $700-800.
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|So they're not prepared to shell out an arm and a leg for cheaply made Crapple product? They've gone up in my estimation, although no doubt somebody could swap a kidney for one if they were that desperate.
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|I love how they cite Norway as having 88% Internet penetration.
I should hope so! They only have a bit over 4M people in the entire #$@& country!
There are more people than that in each of many metropolitan areas in this country!
UPDATE! FLASH! BREAKING NEWS!
Projections just obtained estimate that the population of Norway may reach 5M by 2030!!! Stay tuned for developments!
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|Hey, im Norwegian and you are just jealous. norway is actually the size of Germany, with 5% of the population, a lot of very rural and difficult areas to provide broadband, and that is why Norway is mentioned here. Sweden is also high on the rankings, with a lot faster speeds than any other country, except perhaps south korea and japan.
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|Jealous of what? Of snow 9 months of the year? ;-)
The US has umpteen times the land mass, much more diverse and rugged terrain and climatic extremes and we have essentially 100% coverage of electrical and land line based communications featuring significant reliability.
The fact that your country with less people than our major metropolitan areas is 80% wired is nice. But we have metropolitan areas with larger populations and equal coverage, including NYC with greater than 8M people and 87% penetration.
Verizon will have 100% fiber coverage in NYC without government subsidization.
And that last small point should change the nature of the conversation significantly.
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|And yet even with 20 times the population of Australia, with a similar land-mass you've got piss-poor 3G services.
Say what? :p
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|for the "equivalent of $712"
And they got a "lukewarm response"?
Heck, that's great at that ridiculous price!
I'm surprised they got more than simply a few looking at it and walking on!
Any phone is going to have to do A LOT more than make calls to justify that absurd price.
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|It turns out the Polish were holding thier phones backwards and upside-down.
The body funk of the Indian population is warping the resistive membrane touch screen and rendering the phone useless.
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|LOL!
Would that make the price $217?
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|Actually, that would be LIZ$ if it were backward and upside-down.
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|You are right...but my keyboard lacks the upside down function... :-( ;-)
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|$712 and without any buttons?
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|Hollywood_ you are an icon of your own stupidity... are there still many of "those" running in the wild in the US? :-/ ...let's hope not. :-/
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