3G IPhone In Italy Without Exclusivity, Revenue-Sharing: Rumor
By James Quintana Pearce - Mon 21 Apr 2008 10:33 AM PST
The latest iPhone rumor has been sparked by an article in Italian paper La Repubblica, which claims that the 3G UMTS iPhone will hit Italy in the summer of this year. That’s nothing new, but the article goes on to claim that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is changing its business model for Italy—there will be no revenue-sharing, and the deal won’t be exclusive (although Telecom Italia Mobile will have a few months lead time on the other carriers). Going by the Babelfish translation, the article argues that the mobile market is changing with revenue coming from three parts: Infrastructure revenue for voice and internet access will get paid to the telcos, premium services and content will get paid to the content providers, and social networking and search functions will be ad-supported. The general gist seems to be that Jobs doesn’t think the access revenue will remain high and is foregoing the revenue-sharing deal for a higher initial price for the iPhone. Those arguments are all legitimate arguments, but there are other equally legitimate and opposing arguments...it all comes down to what people believe the market is going to do.
Another point made is that the Italian telecoms aren’t that enthused by Jobs’ promise to increase data traffic. “Tim, without the iPhone, has already recorded one increase of navigation on the cellular ones of 90 percent.”
If Apple does change its business model in Italy it isn’t certain that would follow on to other markets—the carriers will probably want to maintain exclusivity and Apple will correspondingly want to maintain the revenue-share arrangements. However, it could create a source of 3G iPhones that don’t have to be unlocked.
Another interesting point in the article is Italy’s high uptake of 3G—44 percent of Italian users are on UMTS, apparently, with France only showing a 20 percent penetration of UMTS users.
Posted in: Companies, Apple, Countries, Europe, Gadgets, Technologies, 3G Etc
