Swisscom confirms iPhone deal; Apple’s available market nears 500 million
Less than a week after press reports that a deal had been reached, Swisscom on Wednesday confirmed that it will be bringing Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone to Switzerland this summer.
For a country known for its discretion, Switzerland has been a hotbed of iPhone rumors lately. The one getting the most buzz was posted Tuesday on MacPrime’s Swisscom iPhone forum by a reader named dakis. Dakis provides price points, a June 20 delivery date and three colors: silver, black and white — none of which sounds quite right.
Swisscom (SWJ.F) is Switzerland’s largest mobile phone carrier, with 5.1 million mobile subscribers, and one of its biggest IT providers. Wednesday’s announcement follows a string of deals that more than triples the iPhone’s available market, according to American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu, from 150 million in the U.S. and Europe today to roughly 470 million worldwide this summer.
[Thanks to 9to5Mac for the tip.]
I don’t believe a single word of it. They think we are fools.
Notwithstanding that they may be right, being denied an iPhone has taught me that life can go on without one. And I have noticed something that is a terrible problem for Apple in Europe. The way the european market works, when you cross country borders you end up paying christ knows what for your data. The EU made a big fuss about forcing the phone companies to stop this illegal activity, the result of which was the phone companies telling the EU to get stuffed. Which they did. We still get pillaged everytime we move a few hundred meters.
and so this is the thing, the problem with the iPhone in europe. It is the sort of device you want exactly for traveling around. It is mobile, it does your office stuff on the move. But in europe, being on the move means having some prince who owns a telco raping you financially. It is a hell of a thing. The iPhone is certainly forcing the issue of the public right to broadband communications without being tax farmed. Finally we have a device that allows us to use the band width available, and more.
Yeah. when the revolution comes, the telco executives will be first up against the wall. The shareholder will be alright, though. They will in Switzerland with me. Waiting for the freaking iMyth to arrive.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
the number is already up to 575 millions.