T-Mobile, Orange, O2 Get iPhone in Europe

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

August 22, 2007, 10:21 AM

Apple has secured revenue sharing deals to bring its iPhone to Europe, the Financial Times reported late Tuesday.

Three operators have signed deals with Apple that will be officially announced later this month at an industry trade show, the paper reported. They are T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France, and O2 in the UK.

As part of the arrangement, Apple will receive a 10 percent cut of all revenue from calls and data transferred through the phones. It is not known how long the exclusivity period will be, but Apple’s deal with AT&T in the US is said to be for a period of two years.

With such high royalty rates being agreed to by mobile phone operators, it shows the lengths that carriers are going to secure iPhone deals for their networks. Revenue sharing deals like the iPhone’s are essentially unheard of -- phone manufacturers typically get no cut of revenues made from the use of their devices.

Part of Apple’s success in getting operators to agree to its terms could be its forbiddance of subsidies. Instead of the carrier taking a chance and paying some of the cost of the handset on behalf of the customer, the customer itself is responsible for the full price of the phone.

Germany, France, and the UK are likely the only European countries to see the phone this year, as Apple has said it will not roll out to the rest of Europe until next year. An Asian launch is also expected at that time.