Airtel set to ring in iPhone this year

EYEING the growing market for highend mobile phones in the country telecom companies are launching new models of smartphones almost every month.
The latest smartphone to hit the Indian market will be Apples iPhone, which is being brought to the country by Bharti Airtel, through a tie- up with USbased Apple Inc.
“ Bharti Airtel has signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to India later this year,” the company said in a statement. Sources said Airtel may start offering iPhones around Diwali festival to its over 65 million GSM- based subscribers.
Airtel's announcement comes on the heels of the world's largest mobile phone operator Vodafone announcing last week to distribute iPhones worldwide including India. Company official's are not willing to disclose the price of the iPhone that will be launched in the country. Even Bharti Airtel gets ready to launch iPhone in India, RIM is launching a new high- end version of the BlackBerry aimed at its core base of business users. Called the BlackBerry Bold, the new smartphone would be the first BlackBerry product to support high- speed HSDPA cellular networks. It comes with integrated GPS, Wi- Fi and a host of multimedia features. The market for smartphones globally is dominated by Nokia that has a market share of 52.9 per cent in the segment. Research In Motion ( RIM), owners of BlackBerry, have 11.4 per cent market share. While Apples iPhone, which was launched last year has 6.5 per market cent, Motorola too has the same share of 6.5 per cent. Other brands such as LG and Samsung have the remaining 22.7 per cent share. The iPhone is an Internet- enabled multimedia mobile phone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It has a multi- touch screen with virtual keyboard and buttons. The iPhones features include a camera phone, portable media player ( iPod), text messaging and visual voicemail. It also offers Internet services including e- mail, web browsing and local Wi- Fi connectivity. It is a quadband mobile phone that uses the GSM standard, and hence has international capability. It supports the EDGE data technology. In the grey market the devices are available in the range of $ 500 to 600 ( about Rs 25,000), sources said, adding that these handsets procured from the grey market need to be unlocked. The tie- up between Bharti and Apple is likely to benefit the consumers who can now avail the products from legal channels and avoid tapping the grey market. If Airtel launches the service around Diwali, ahead of Vodafone, which also plans to launch the device by the year- end, it would get the first mover advantage in the highly competitive Indian mobile market. The UK telecom giant Vodafone would be selling the iPhone in India, besides nine other markets such as Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey. Apple has filed more than 300 patents related to the iPhone technology. LG Electronics claims the iPhones design was copied from the LG Prada.