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Orange lose iPhone exclusivity in France |
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Join Date: Dec 2007
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Orange lose iPhone exclusivity in France
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/...ogy/iphone.php Quote:
PARIS: The French competition regulator on Wednesday suspended an agreement between Apple and France Télécom that ties the iPhone in France exclusively to customers of Orange, the top mobile operator in France. I guess Vodafone might re-visit their appeal against the exclusivity in Germany now.The Competition Council said the decision would take effect Thursday at the latest and was aimed at allowing customers to buy the device with a contract from France Télécom's main rivals, SFR and Bouygues Télécom, pending a full inquiry, which could last 15 months. France Télécom, which owns Orange, said it intended to appeal the decision, which is said it "places France in a radically different position" than Britain, Germany and Spain, where Apple has also reached exclusivity agreements. But the French regulator said France differed from Germany, Britain and Spain because it was dominated by the two biggest carriers. France Télécom controls 44 percent of the market and SFR, owned by Vivendi, has 34 percent. Bouygues Télécom holds 17 percent. "Such a market structure can only be detrimental to the operator holding the weakest share," the decision said. Carolina Milanesi, director of mobile device research at Gartner in London, said the decision, if upheld, would cost Orange a significant amount in lost revenue. "I think at the end of the day, this will be more of a loss to Orange than to Apple," Milanesi said. "Apple will just find one or more nonexclusive distributors for the iPhone, perhaps Bouygues Télécom. But for Orange, they will not only lose data revenue from the device but also the chance of attracting new customers from competitors that the exclusive contract would have brought." For Apple, the inability to grant an exclusive contract means it will not be able to command a share of the fees charged by the operator, as it does in the three other major European markets and the United States, where its exclusive carrier is AT&T. It is unclear how much Apple was receiving from Orange and how much the loss would be. Orange said it had sold 600,000 iPhones since it was introduced last year. The Competition Council was acting on a complaint filed in September by Bouygues, which said it hoped to start selling the iPhone as soon as possible. A spokesman for SFR said Wednesday that it hoped to start selling iPhones in the next few hours. Nobody at Apple France was immediately available to comment, and an Apple spokesman based in Britain, Alan Hely, declined to comment, saying he had not yet received the ruling. Apple and France Télécom would face a fine if they defied the ruling, the council said, adding that exclusivity contracts with operators for future models of the iPhone would be capped at three months. The Competition Council said that exclusive contracts were not anti-competitive by definition. But the council added that because France Télécom's contract with the iPhone lasts five years, with an option for Apple to exit after three, and covers different versions of it, like the 3G introduced in July, the exclusivity could expand to unforeseen new technologies over the contract's lifetime. "There exists therefore a real risk of exclusion for Bouygues Télécom in the meantime if this type of exclusivity broadens," the council said in the decision. No doubt the EU will get involved and outlaw mobile phone exclusivity at some point. One could assume that Apple have the same 3 year exit clause in the UK |
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