France

Finally, the real iPhone

There's a theory favored by savvy Apple watchers that the first generation iPhone -- greeted with such hoopla last year -- was not actually the real thing.

That iPhone -- the one that hundreds of thousands of Americans queued up to buy for up to $599 apiece, the one that Time magazine named the Invention of the Year, the one that six million people purchased before Apple finally stopped making them in MORE

iPhones in Switzerland, Spain, Poland and beyond

News and rumors about the iPhone's global expansion keep rolling in.

Citing a source at Swisscom, Lausanne-based Le Matin Online reported on Thursday that Apple had concluded an agreement to bring the 3G iPhone to Switzerland this summer (link, in French). Swisscom, with 5.1 million subscribers, is the country's largest mobile carrier.

Meanwhile, France Telecom CFO Gervais Pellissier said on Wednesday that his company was in talks with Apple (AAPL) to extend MORE

Britain's Carphone Warehouse runs out of iPhones

Well, that's one way to clear your shelves of excess inventory.

Eight days after O2 and Carphone Warehouse, Apple's U.K. distributors, tried to rid themselves of unsold iPhones by instituting a 100 pound (37%) price cut on the 8GB model, the extra phones have all but disappeared.

On Thursday, Carphone, Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, alerted advertisers that the sale had done its work: the 8GB models were gone and would MORE

iPhone: European fire sales spreading to France

Hard on the heels of a 75% price cut in Germany and 100 pounds (37%) off in the U.K. comes a report out of Paris that two high-level executives at Orange, the iPhone's wireless carrier in France, have flown to Cupertino to figure out what to do about the excess inventory piling up on their shelves.

Under a headline that reads "L'échec de l'iPhone pousse Orange et Apple à renégocier" ("The MORE

Fuzzy Math: How many iPhones did Europeans buy?

End-of-year sales figures for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone in Europe are trickling in, but not in any form that can be definitively pieced together.

That latest news comes from Germany, where the head of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile division said in an online interview Saturday that it had signed on 70,000 customers in the 11 weeks since the device went on sale. (link)

What's not clear is whether that number represents iPhone sales or MORE

iPhones sell like crepes suzette in France

The British and the Germans queued up dutifully for their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, but when the devices finally arrived in Paris last week, the French went nuts.

On day one, France Telecom's Orange division sold 12,000 iPhones, according to Metro International, easily beating T-Mobile's first-day sales in Germany, a country with one third more people (82 million vs. 61 million) and 50 percent more Internet users (52 million vs. 34 million) MORE

France's $956 iPhone

Apple's (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France late tonight at select Orange boutiques at prices that look very different from those charged in the U.S. ($399), the U.K. (289 pounds) or Germany (399 euros locked, 999 euros unlocked).

France Telecom, which owns Orange, knew even before it signed its exclusive deal with Apple that it was going to be required to offer customers the option of buying the iPhone with MORE

The $890 iPhone rebate

Apple (AAPL) and T-Mobile may have thought they could choke off the sale of unlocked iPhones in Germany by pricing them high enough -- and 999 euros ($1,485 at today's exchange rate) is certainly pretty steep for a cell phone that ordinarily sells for 399 euros in Europe and $399 in the U.S.

But they probably didn't figure on the competition using that 600 euro ($890) price differential as a crowbar MORE

Paris: City of unlocked iPhones

UPDATE: France Telecom today set its prices for iPhones locked and unlocked. See France's $956 iPhone.

Apple's (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France Wednesday night for 399 euros ($593) with a 2-year contract, and although we don't know yet how much France Telecom plans to charge for an iPhone without a contract, we do know that it will be less than 999 euros ($1,485 at today's exchange rates).

That's how much MORE

Europe's $1,478 iPhones

One of the questions left unanswered when Apple (AAPL) finally sealed the deal with Orange to market the iPhone in France -- where it's illegal to sell a phone that's locked to a particular carrier -- was how much customers who wanted to buy the device without a contract would have to pay.

Now we know, thanks to a court in Hamburg, Germany: a premium of 600 euros, or $880, MORE