14 DAY TRIAL // It won't be long now before Orange announces the details of the iPhone launch in France, including service plans and the cost of the devices. Although the service plans have already been leaked by the company's own website, there are still a few details that will make for a surprise.
In an interview with Europe 1 radio, Didier Lombard, France Telecom's chief executive, mentioned quite a few details about the upcoming launch. The locked version of the device will go on sale for 399 euro, the same price that Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile is charging for locked iPhones in Germany. Interestingly enough, the unlocked version will cost "significantly lower" than the 999 euros asked by T-Mobile in Germany. As already known from the leaked service plans, the contracts will start at 49 euros a month including two hours of communications and 50 text messages. Also, customers in France will have the option to opt for only a one-year contract, which will also raise the price per month by 4.50.
Lombard mentioned that he expected sales of 100,000 units by the end of the calendar year, a projection that was deemed "reasonable' by analysts, but which seems unlikely in the light of the sales figures from the UK. A significant factor here will be just how significantly lower the price of the unlocked iPhone will be, considering that the service plans are even worse than those in the UK.
The French launch of the iPhone was promising to be a significant event, due to the laws which required the device to also be sold without ties to Orange. Now that this has already happened in Germany, and that the service plans were already known beforehand, the glow is gone from the event. It could also be that the world has already gone through three of these launches already and it has now become a non-event, just another iPhone launch with many others still to come.