iPhone in India - Hefty Price sans Service

I had pre-resgistered at the Airtel website for an Apple iPhone due for launch in India through Airtel and Vodafone on Aug 22, 2008. At $199 which translates to approximately 8678 rupees, I was of the opinion initially that the iPhone price would not cross the 16K-20k range with all surcharges, duties, tariffs, etc thrown in.

However my expectation came a cropper with Vodafone spelling out that its iPhone pricing stands at 31000 rupees. This immediately puts the iPhone out of my reach, not just from the affordability issue, but from 'Huge price tag for features I won't be able to use' viewpoint.

Two things glare out.....

  1. 3G iPhone with no 3G service in India
  2. No gurantee of any bundled data plans with iPhone.

Which means I am shelling out 31K for a hyped up techno gadget with two of its much vaunted features unlikely to be of any use to me.

I have already put my iPhone purchase plans on hold. My investment will go into a Nokia or Samsung if I do not see any improvement in the next 6 months.

Comments

Bit Hawk said…
Same here. Was expecting iphone in the sub 20k range. The most ridiculous thing is that the difference between 8gb and 16gb models is just around 5k. So anyone who would go for iphone in India right now should be stupid. If anyone is going for an iphone and settling for 8gb, that even stupider.
I think I will also wait till the next big price slash happens.
Bharatesh said…
Very true... I received an SMS from AIRTEL just today. Moreover with TRAI and DoT not reaching any consensus on 3G regulations, I don't see things improving on this front in immediate future. I am going to wait for a year or so till such time 3G services are available/stable in India.
Vijay said…
Let us keep our fingers crossed. I expect the techno freaks out their to dampen the sales by boycotting gadgets like iPhone for being sold at such high prices. Eventually prices should plummet.