When first details about iPhone pricing in Europe emerged, I was quite pleased with myself to find out my prediction of a price around EUR 1000 was holding up. However, that was before the price cuts. Now T-Mobile Germany just announced their price for non-locked, contract free iPhones (usually the only fair data point for comparison, as subsidies vary greatly and you’re paying the difference anyways through the monthly fees), and it’s still EUR 1000. This seems like an arbitrary alibi offer at first, made only to comply with German law. However, it makes sense when you consider that the cheapest contract they’re offering is EUR 50 per month, and you have to sign up for a minimum of two years. EDGE is included in that fee, but the value of that should be EUR 20 per month, tops. And voice calls are so expensive that you’d expect to pay pretty much no monthly fee, instead of 1200 over two years.
So, yes, the iPhone is a EUR 1000 device over here. As long as you don’t make the mistake to think of it as a mere telephone, it’s well worth that price, for a large group of people at least. But don’t tell me it costs EUR 400 – that’s far from the truth.
