Will The Philippines See The iPhone Next Year?

A link found in this entry from Pinoy Tech Blog says that Verizon was the original planned partner or Apple for the iPhone. However Verizon didn’t agree to the terms that Apple wanted. Terms such as, a share in monthly subscriber fees, control over support for iPhone and a say on how and where the iPhone will be sold. Verizon passed, Cingular got the deal.

The blog entry from Pinoy Tech Blog discusses if the Philippines will likely see the iPhone here, granting that it is a predominantly prepaid country. In the US, prepaid cellphones are virtually unheard of, in the Philippines it’s more common than jeepneys. Now that’s saying a lot. The prepaid mobile phone users outnumber the postpaid ones by a high margin.

So the question is, will Apple partner with a carrier here or will it sell the iPhone unlocked. I had a discussion about this with my friend Elbert. He knows some people in the telco industry and he says that the Philippine market is just too small to make it worth an exclusive deal. There’s just too small a subscriber base for postpaid users to merit this. It simply won’t fly. So he thinks that Apple, at least for the Philippines and maybe the rest of South East Asia, will sell the iPhone unlocked for a little premium. Of course there will be some features that won’t be available such as the random voice mail, etc.

Now will $500 to $600 (plus around $150 premium) Apple iPhone sell in the Philippines? I think so. We’re just used to buying expensive phones here. In a country where most people can’t afford cars and take the public transportation, phones have become a defacto status symbol. People buy expensive phones as a way of showing off. Even if they don’t use the functions much. So I really think there is a market for the iPhone here.