Around 45 days ago, one of readers who uses an iPhone got a call from Vodafone. The caller told him that this is an iPhone Survey, asked him how long he has been using the iPhone, and which phone he used before.
Then, the important question – “Do you plan to take the new Vodafone iPhone?”
He said No, and that was the end of the survey.
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Apart from the comparatively high phone prices on Vodaphone and Airtel – which they don’t have any control because “Apple Hold All The Power“, the companies – Vodafone at least – are looking to extract their pound of flesh as far as data charges are concerned:
So the data plan charges are higher, and the data limits lower (for the Rs. 499 plan), compared to the existing plans. The bottom line, literally, from the Vodafone website:
“Data browsing on iPhone will be possible only if you subscribe to any of the above data plans or talkplans.”
As is obvious from the exchange above – Vodafone knows who all are using the iPhone. Why would anyone using the iPhone with a regular data plan pay more for the special iPhone data plans? In my opinion, only if they’re forced to do so…
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Voda is offering two tariff plans for the iPhone – Rs. 799 and Rs. 999. Details here.
Note: Airtel hasn’t updated their site with the iPhone charges yet
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3 Comments until now.
Nikhil:
As far as I know, Apple gets a generous cut of the data revenues too. So it is not just the MNOs getting a pound of flesh. :-)
If you think of the impact on the MNOs’ profitability models, it is substantial. So far, user revenues have subsidised handsets but then comes this deal with Apple. Worth thinking about, no?
In the UK, the iPhone has to be activated before you can begin to use it. The data limits and prices are more generous than other (read: non i-Phone) packages.
So back to consumer pricing: if you look around the world right now, prices being charged for premium brand products and ‘cool’ products are probably the highest in India. Yes, even higher than the UK and this is an observation across product categories, so I am not going PPP comparisons or per megabyte comparisons, just absolute costs of strictly comparable SKUs. The only exception to this, that I know of, is Bose whose prices are normalised so that there is no ‘arbitrage’ possible for global travellers.
If people in India at the moment are keen to spend silly money over ‘cool’ things, why blame the purveyors? :-) The price is what the market bears, not always what the seller wishes it would. No?
Data charges are 10,000 rupees per GB at 1p/kb now theyve made it 5,000 rupees per GB of data use at 5p/10kb. With the phone burning up data at a fast rate one better be ready to pay.
Talk about white elephants..not only expensive to buy but also expensive to maintain. But then, I know of someone who has bought it and keeps data off…only puts it on when he wants to “show the capabilities” as he puts it.I just try and imagine a tall pointy hat on his head!!
And somewhere I wonder why all this rush for 3G phones in a country that has no 3G network?