Czech Carrier Dumps iPhone Over Apple's 'Business Terms'
Bloomberg briefly reports that Czech carrier Telefonica/O2 has apparently announced that it will cease selling all iPhone models, objecting to Apple's "business terms".
Telefonica Czech Republic AS won’t sell Apple’s new iPhone 4S and will end sales of all Apple’s models because of Apple’s business terms, Hospodarske Noviny reported, citing Telefonica’s local spokesman Hany Farghali.
No additional details on the reasons behind the fall-out have been made available in the Bloomberg report, and the original report from the Czech newspaper does not yet appear to be available online.
Dow Jones Newswires reported last week that Telefonica Czech Republic AS and Apple were still trying to reach a deal for the iPhone 4S, talks that have apparently ended without an agreement being reached.
"We haven't agreed with Apple on mutually acceptable conditions yet," Hany Farghali told Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview.
...
Telefonica Czech, majority owned by Spain's Telefonica SA (TEF), is unlikely to add the iPhone 4S model to its pre-holiday offering, said a person familiar with the local mobile market who asked to remain anonymous.
Instead, the company will focus on already much higher volume sales of smart phones based on rival operating systems, including Google Inc.'s (GOOG) Android and Nokia Corp.'s (NOK) Symbian.
Telefonica is not the only iPhone carrier in the Czech Republic, as both Vodafone and T-Mobile are also offering the device through their Czech units. Consequently, customers looking to obtain the iPhone in the country will still have options, but Telefonica's departure is an interesting one given the efforts other carriers around the world are making to win the right to offer the device.
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Top Rated Comments
Most people will just buy an unlocked/unbranded/unsubsidized iP4s directly from Apple and drop in any prepaid uSIM that they want to use from any carrier.
Why is this even news?
I don't know, I see many more Samsung Galaxy S2s than I do iP3/4s. I also see many people wanting and willing to pay for 4G/LTE.
Czech O2 makes more money by not supporting the iPhone, otherwise they wouldn't have dropped it. :cool:
I actually see a larger portion of the NOKIA N-series and E-series than I've seen anywhere else in the world. I also see a fair amount of SE smartphones as well.
I see more iP3/4 in Stockholm than Frankfurt (split time living in both places), but it's still much less than what I see in the US (grew up in the states and travel back almost monthly.) It baffles my mind, when the contracts are so expensive in the US as well (roughly 2000/2 years).
Smartphone usage in Europe is much more diverse than in the states.