The blogosphere in India is abuzz with dismay on the iPhone pricing here. Even prior to the launch, many naysayers had painted the iPhone as an overpriced, poor-value gizmo that pales in comparison with HTC Diamond and high end phones from Nokia. The pricing has given them more reasons to laugh it off and not even give it a place in the consideration set.
Singapore is also launching on Aug 22, and SingTel has offered not one, but seven price plans for the iPhone! The iFlexi plans range from $56 to $205 a month, and come pre-bundled with data plans offering up to 3GB.
The SingTel plans range from $26 to $193 a month, but require people to add data separately.
As you can see the price of the phone varies depending on the package. It could cost as much SGD 698 (approx. Rs.21,500) for the 8GB version or nothing at all. In the context of the Singapore market I don’t know how these tariffs stack up, but at least its not a flat take-it-or-leave it price.
There must be a good reason why the operators here did not consider this kind of flexi plan. What is it? Can some telecom pundits throw some light?
