Number of posts : 750 Age : 42 Registration date : 2007-05-23
Subject: Did Apple offer the iPhone 4 to Smart for 6B? Fri Oct 01, 2010 1:45 pm
Heard about it once before and therumor surfaced again this week that Smart Communications was trying to bid tocarry the iPhone 4 in the Philippines. It never materialized so we’ll have toput this entry in the speculativebin.
The iPhone 4 is the 3rd smartphonefrom Apple to be released exclusively thru Globe Telecom in the Philippines.Globe is partly owned by SingTel (which also got the exclusive deal inSingapore) so it probably was a package deal for them 2 years ago.
However, in some countries orregions, there are multiple carriers that distribute the iPhone. The unconfirmedstory is that Apple offered Smart to be the 2nd distributor (or Smart askedApple what it would take to be a distributor) of the iPhone 4 in thePhilippines and the contract/offer was for about Php6 Billion (~$136 million).
Estimates put the total number ofhandsets in the 200,000 range for that distribution deal. That’s a lot ofiPhone 4 they need to sell to get back on the 6B investment and considering ahuge number of postpaid subscribers are already locked to Globe, it’s gonna behard to hit that sales number with existing competition.
Some handset manufacturers tell methat if you can sell over 10,000 smartphones in the country, it’s alreadyconsidered a hit model. The 100k to 200k figure seems too high a risk. That’smost probably the reason why there’s a 24-month lock-in period when getting apostpaid account for the iPhone — the carrier needs to get that investment backvia long-term subscription plans on top of handset sales.
Then again, the media mileage one gets being an exclusive iPhonedistributor as well as the coolness factor being an Apple-partner is also partof the package.