MORE iPHONES AS DEMAND INCREASES

The iPhone club is due to expand significantly over the next year and while the price of entry may not be much lower than it is at present, there will competition – focusing on special offers from the different providers. From Thursday next the 2.33 million customers of Vodafone will have access to iPhone , ending a two-year exclusivity deal held by O2, and another operator,  3, is planning to launch the popular Apple device in the autumn.Vodafone, Ireland’s biggest operator, will take online orders from this morning (Monday), and will announce what it calls “a very compelling launch offer”  on Thursday. The Sunday newspapers didn’t provide any details but they speculated that pricing was expected to be broadly similar to O2, which has 1.71 million customers. In an interview with the Business Post, Tony Hanway , the company’s consumer sales director, seemed to suggest that the iPhone business was so buoyant that there was enough in it for everyone.
“The country is awash with iPhones and the vast majority were bought through O2 and operate on our network,” Hanway said. “The demand has never levelled off. It has increased all the time since the launch two years ago and has never been stronger than it is at the moment.”  So consumers will just have to wait and see what exactly is in it for them. Will the special offers be window dressing with two major companies providing essentially the same price and service or will the expanded availability drive down prices?