‘iPhone’s premium pricing could curb sales in India’

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Mumbai, New Delhi, Aug 21: Though the much-hyped iPhone has hit the Indian market, with a midnight launch pan India on Thursday, industry experts are maintaining a wait-and-watch policy over the gadget’s market in India. The iPhone comes at a premium price of Rs 31,000 and Rs 36,100 for the 8GB and the 16 GB capacity respectively.

Naveen Mishra, analyst, communications research, IDC India said, “iPhone’s premium pricing is likely to restrict market penetration in the near term. This could be similar to the experience that RIM faced when it launched Blackberry exclusively with Airtel.” Romal Shetty, executive director, KPMG, said, “Probably they are testing the market initially and we might see prices going down by year end.”

Both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone maintain that the prices have been fixed by Apple and the company’s weren’t earning any margins on the phone.

Sanjay Kapoor, president, mobile services, Bharti Airtel said, “Internationally, the phone is sold on a contractual basis to consumers, but India being a pre-paid market, with no contractual obligation on post-paid connections, the phone has been priced at these points.”

Harit Nagpal, CMO, Vodafone said, “Had there been a contractual commitment, the consumer would have ended up paying more.” The telecos also believe that since the product is targeted at the high ARPU (average revenue per user) segment, the professionals and the youth are expected to widely popularise the gadget.

Both the players at the moment refused to comment on the expected sales figure for the handset and maintained that the iPhone received huge response at the time of booking.