The iPhone in Hong Kong: A bargain at $24 a month

look I’m Canadian and American, both the iPhone and the blackberry are exceptional devices that shapes our path to the future. I own shares in both companies and we have 2 iPhones and 2 ipods in the house. Our bill is really ok 110.00 a month. Now you want to save money buy more iPhones and get the family plan. I’m lovin it.

Look carefully, for the 16GB w/ max plan, one is playing 700USD upfront and ~36USD per month.

Not as cheap as it sounds but not bad either.

Note that in HK minutes are super cheap.

It’s not really fair to compare HK to the US. Hutchison’s expenditures (incl capital exp) are much less as the area of network coverage is small and the population is dense in HK and Macau, when compared to the US.

That said, it’s the threat of competition that largely leads Hutchison to pass along its cost savings to the customer.

I’m getting the 3g no matter what. But at&t has one way of really not pissing me off. And that would be to include unlimited texting with the data plan. $70 for only 450 minutes plus unlimited data is on the threshold of my tolerance but if they expect me to pay ANOTHER $20 for unlimited texting, then they’ve lost their mind. Who in their right mind will jump at the chance to pay $90 a month? Especially with fuel costs rising.

Judging by their reluctance to reveal what the actual plans are, I think there’s a chance they’re still considering adding in unlimited texting.

The max HK plan only has 2200 minutes, not unlimited voice.

http://iphone.three.com.hk/website/en/iplan.html

ex ped: Right you are. Thanks for the link. Will fix.

To add to my previous comment…

My current Rogers’ plan gives me 350 minutes for $40 a month. Their entry iPhone plan gives only 150 minutes for $60 a month. One would think that since they are paying at least $199 for the phone up front, that would balance out some of the cost that Rogers must make back to pay Apple the remainder for the phone, but instead, the packages are worse for existing customers “upgrading” to the iPhone. Not cool.

Congrats to the Hong Kong market for the fair prices.

O2 is only offering 75 minutes in their entry package? Ouch. I thought Canada’s 150 minutes was bad enough.

Breaking the plans down like this make Rogers’ plans look not so bad, except one is locked in for 3 years, not 2.

What about overage fees? What do the various carriers charge? Rogers charges $0.35 per minute and $0.50 per megabyte, both which can add up *very* quickly.

Just so you know… in Canada we need to sign a 3 year contract.

So without taxes or the addon that lets you have Caller ID (which isnt included) and more than 75 text messages It comes out to a grand total of $2359.

But with our 13% tax in Ontario that is $2640. OH! And I forgot about the System Access Fee that is required every month, that is anothre 6.75 so that comes out to $2883.

Whats that? You want caller ID? OK, well that is $15 dollars a month. So after SAF and Tax its a grand total of $3525. Oh! Sorry you want your unlimited evenings to start at 6pm instead of 9pm (which to be honest only gives you an hour to reasonably call people and sitll be polite) so that is 20 dollars instead of 15 which is a grand total of $3728.

so 3700 dollars for the phone on the CHEAPEST price plan Rogers has to offer if you want what is included with ATT plan (well almost, you still don’t get unlimited data and only 1/3 of the talk time)

I would actually prefer a data plan other than AT&T’s “unlimited” plan since I am in areas with WIFI 18+ hours a day. 500mb would be more than adequate for my usage but AT&T is not going to pass up the extra revenue for those data plans that they claim is “needed” to cover their network costs.

The iphone is going global. Hopefully the increase in global growth will be reflected in the share price and I can make some money back on the shares I bought last month….
Andy
http://www.savingtoinvest.com

If the press continues to focus on 24 month total costs instead of monthly costs it will hurt sales of the iphone.

Given the state of the economy, no one wants to think they are spending thousands of dollars on a phone.