iPhone Launched in India through Vodafone

There was an advertisement in Times of India ( on top of the front page ) regarding the launch of the much awaited iPhone 3G in India on Vodafone. It also had a number for us to sms on to book our phones.

I made my SMS & got the reply that my phone has been booked & they shall shortly get back to me regarding the pricing & other details.

Hi mate,

I heard that Iphone starts from $199... is that including the importing costs??
I guess no...

nah !!! in India expect it to be more than 20k at least

too bad man!!

nearly 1.5 times price difference!!!!

Rahul wrote:nah !!! in India expect it to be more than 20k at least

In US it is discounted price I think, discount is born by service providers like AT&T etc.

AT&T announced recently that they would be offering another version of the iPhone, one that comes without a contract. That sounds great, on the surface – but just a bit deeper you discover that the no-contract phone has some very severe side effects. Namely, it hurts your wallet – a lot – as the phone runs $400 more than the same model phone with a contract. The $299 version of the iPhone without contract will become $699, a small fortune.

On top of having a massive price tag, the friendly folks at AT&T have also decided that these $599 or $699 phones should be locked to their network – preventing you from using it on other providers’ networks, which essentially means you're locked into a contract anyway. What exactly is AT&T thinking? $699 for a locked phone that costs Apple only $173 to manufacture? True, AT&T is going to be paying Apple significantly more than that. Even if it was twice the price, though, AT&T is kidding themselves if they think people are going to jump at such atrocious pricing coupled with cumbersome ways to restrict what customers do.

http://www.techspot.com/news/30690-att-to-sell-699-iphone.html