Reports have been coming in that O2 may loose their exclusivity as the UK’s sole iPhone 3G provider. So who is set to steal their thunder?
The folks at Omio are citing word from a “very, VERY credible source” that French operator Orange may soon take the reigns as early as October. While O2 did win out the original deal for the UK, Orange managed to snag up a few countries of their own, proving that future deals with Apple should not be difficult. And as we all know, single carrier exclusivity has not been mandated.
“The possibility of o2/Apple exclusivity being a limited time offer due to lackluster sales of the first iPhone in the UK. Apple playing so nice and o2 giving phones out for free is a far cry from £269 for an 8GB a year ago, there had to be a catch to them delivering arguably the best value iPhone 3G deals in the world. Three months for o2 as the sole vendor, then all bets are off? Apple wants to sell as many phones as possible, an exclusive carrier is not in their best interests.”
While O2’s iPhone 3G launch was seen as a great success, the past few weeks have proved to be a strain as stock has remained scarce…at best. Yet we know that supplies will increase, eventually, and O2 will most certainly need to focus all of their efforts on maintaining an adequate cache as there exclusivity may soon cease to exist. Although, if everyone that wants an iPhone 3G, has one by October, O2 will still come out on top, right? We’ll see.
