Tech News Thread : iPhone in India

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Four Asia-Pacific mobile providers - Singapore Telecommunications Ltd.,
Bharti Airtel Ltd., Globe Telecom Inc. and SingTel subsidiary Optus
Monday - said Monday they have signed an agreement with Apple Inc. to
offer the iphone in their respective markets later this year.

SingTel
will sell the multimedia gadget in Singapore, Bharti Airtel Ltd. in
India, Globe Telecom Inc. in the Philippines and Optus in Australia,
the companies said in a brief joint statement, without giving details.

SingTel
owns Optus and holds a 30.5 percent stake in Bharti and 44.5 percent in
Globe. As of Dec. 31, 2007, SingTel had about 2.3 million mobile
subscribers in Singapore and around 7 million in Australia. Bharti
currently has about 64 million subscribers, while Globe reported a 21.3
million mobile subscriber base for the quarter ended March 31.

The
announcement comes as Apple looks to expand sales of the iPhone - a
combination phone, music player and Web browser - that was launched in
the U.S. in 2007.

On Wednesday, America Movil, the top mobile
phone operator in Latin America, said it inked a deal to bring the
iPhone to more than a dozen countries in that region starting later
this year.

Apple has so far signed exclusive deals for the
iPhone with AT&T Inc. in the United States, O2 in Britain, T-Mobile
in Germany and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

The
American company has also in the past few weeks signed deals to sell
the device in Canada as well as in Italy, while Vodafone Group PLC, the
world's biggest mobile company by sales, will sell it in a total of 10
countries, including Australia, India, Italy and Turkey.

By Tech2.com