iPhone to be offered in Singapore by end of 2008

Apple appears to have ditched its one-carrier policy for the iPhone
following a statement announcing that SingTel, Bharti Airtel, Globe Telecom and Optus had signed an agreement with the company to bring the product to Singapore, India, the Philippines and Australia, later this year.

SingTel would not provide any further details but, rival, StarHub said that in Singapore, the agreement was also not exclusive.

"We expect all three operators in Singapore would be offering the iPhone by the end of the year," Michael Sim, corporate communications and investor relations for StarHub said.

An M1 spokesperson weighed in saying "it will continue to maintain dialogue with Apple" and that its "interest is more in the upcoming 3G model".

Apple would only say that it was "excited to be working with SingTel to bring the iPhone to Singapore later this year".

"We can't wait to get this revolutionary phone in the hands of even more people around the world," Apple spokeswoman, Jill Tan said.

The company declined to comment on reports that the iPhone would launch in Singapore in September at an initial price of $690.

Adapted from Marketing news

I hope that the above report is true. Then people would finally stop complaining about how long before the iPhone would be launched in Sg. Not that I'm a huge fan of the iPhone though.

On a marketing point of view, my guess is that with the iPhone in Sg, it also means that those who first bought the iPhone from the US (the innovators) would probably start selling theirs away. As innovators, they want to be viewed as trendsetters, not followers. With the iPhone easily available, they wouldn't want to be seen holding an iPhone like the rest of the public.

But will the majority of sg'reans really be rushing to buy the iPhone? We'll wait and see =)

What do you think?

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