Apple and etisalat strike deal to launch iPhone 3G in the UAE

Dubai: The UAE will be one of first countries in the Gulf to see the launch of the Apple iPhone.

The popular mobile phone will be released in the UAE later this month, according to etisalat business development manager Mark Davis. It will be also launched in Saudi Arabia through Mobily.

"Apple almost views the iPhone as the franchise. They're licensing the product to us, and they want to be sure we do it justice."

etisalat has not released any pricing plans for the iPhone yet, but Davis said there will both prepaid and postpaid plans for the mobile, which will include voice, data and SMS services.

Prices for the iPhone in the United States starts at $199 (Dh730) for the 8GB model and $299 (Dh1,097) for the 16GB version, but these prices require a 2-year contract worth $1,679 (Dh6,672). Whether an unlocked version of the phone will be available is still being discussed.

While etisalat would not release specific numbers regarding their deal with Apple, Davis said he hopes that as much as 5 per cent of the country population could own an iPhone.

An estimated 20,000 people in the UAE own iPhones., some of them are "cracked" - a software process that allows them to work on any network in violation of Apple's end-user licensing agreement.

The Cupertino-based has even been known to disable cracked iPhone.

The iPhone has been sold in the UAE for nearly Dh4,000.

Davis said he was under a lot of pressure to bring the iPhone to the UAE. "It was a 'do-or-die' situation," he said. The deal to bring the iPhone to the UAE was two years in the making and the negotiations between Apple and etisalat were the longest ever for the phone, mainly because of the two companies unfamiliarity with each other, according to him.

He said etisalat had to prove to Apple, through subscriber numbers, revenues and other financial data, that they could handle the iPhone to their satisfaction."I contacted and worked with Apple. We wanted to show [the company] that we could be the provider they wanted, and we had deep enough pockets to support the kind of programme they wanted," he said.

It is good that etisalat is launching the iPhone, since that is the one device that has all the features, and the quality of the phone is really good too.
Sameer Ali
Dubai,UAE
Posted: February 03, 2009, 13:15