Russian iPhone 3G deal demands 1.8 million sales per year

[AppleInsider]

A Russian newspaper has reported that the top three mobile providers in the country have reached agreements with Apple to sell at least 1.8 million iPhones per year through 2011.

On Thursday, Reuters reported hearing from market sources that Mobile TeleSystems, the largest Russian mobile provider, has signed up to begin selling the iPhone 3G "with retail sales likely to begin in October."

The wire service cited business daily paper Vedomosti in reporting that MTS has committed to selling a million iPhones over the next three years, while the second and third place Vimpelcom and MegaFon have signed orders to each sell 1.5 million units per year over the next two years.

The paper also cited a source within one of the providers as saying that the iPhone 3G would be sold for $1000 without a contract; with a contract, the provider requires a "down payment for the smartphone with an initial instalment of $200."

The iPhone has never officially been sold in the country, but Reuters noted that it has "swiftly become a status symbol in the Russian capital." Unauthorized units "are being brought into the country in suitcases or sent by courier."

In an earlier report by Vedomosti, a local analyst said that such a quantity of iPhones would be almost impossible to sell, as it would amount to 12 percent of the entire Russian market in units and capture around a third of the market in terms of money.

In April, the Washington Post reported 500,000 iPhone users in Russia, making the country the third largest concentration of iPhones after the US and China. First generation iPhones were smuggled into Russia, cracked, given unofficial Russian language support, and originally sold for $1,800 before falling to around $700.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[embee]

And if those demands aren't met, tanks will roll into Cupertino.

[Gee4orce]

I'm sure the GPS feature will prove popular, especially for working out how far into a foreign country your tanks can roam...

[melgross]

Sounds like a strange deal, and pretty expensive.

[Booga]

In the iPhone 2.0 software, Russian is already one of the supported languages. I localized ChessClock to it just because I thought Russian-speaking chess players in other countries may appreciate it. But there's no hacking required to get Russian support. Maybe this was required in 1.x?

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by embee

And if those demands aren't met, tanks will roll into Cupertino.

LOL, BUT ... I'm sure all my friends in the former Russian (USSR) satellite states won't find that too funny though given the horrible mess in Georgia at the moment. Maybe the Pentagon will see this as a wonderful opportunity and get Apple to add spy chips?

[merdhead]

Originally Posted by melgross

Sounds like a strange deal, and pretty expensive.

In Soviet Russia, iPhone buys you!

[embee]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

LOL, BUT ... I'm sure all my friends in the former Russian (USSR) satellite states won't find that too funny though given the horrible mess in Georgia at the moment. Maybe the Pentagon will see this as a wonderful opportunity and get Apple to add spy chips?

Yep, that's exactly what I meant. I like the spy chips idea.

Perhaps we'll be hearing about a new addition to Apple's RED product lineup?

[iVlad]

you just can't go without making funny statements about Russia, can't you.

[merdhead]

Originally Posted by iVlad

you just can't go without making funny statements about Russia, can't you.

Let's face its, Russia is a joke. Corrupt from the president down. They're more totalitarian today than under Lenin.

[bigmc6000]

Originally Posted by merdhead

Let's face its, Russia is a joke. Corrupt from the president down. They're more totalitarian today than under Lenin.

Maybe so but at least they aren't sending out little kids as if they are adults

[Rot'nApple]

Subject Title: Russian iPhone 3G deal DEMANDS 1.8 million sales per year

I wonder if I were to buy an iPhone at an Apple store if I could demand from Apple - obtaining, retaining, and utilization of that 3G reception 90% of the time each time I use the 3G iPhone throughout the year if they want my sale!

[embee]

Originally Posted by Rot'nApple

Subject Title: Russian iPhone 3G deal DEMANDS 1.8 million sales per year

I wonder if I were to buy an iPhone at an Apple store if I could demand from Apple - obtaining, retaining, and utilization of that 3G reception 90% of the time each time I use the 3G iPhone throughout the year if they want my sale!

I just KNEW somebody would drag this polite, non-political thread into the gutter.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by merdhead

Let's face its, Russia is a joke. Corrupt from the president down. They're more totalitarian today than under Lenin.

Ouch that was harsh! Of course we have such a corruption free system and wonderful President here in USA so we can of course judge others ...

One day my friends may we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, one day

[SpamSandwich]

Welcome to AppleInsider!

[Magic_Al]

Russia: Less than half the population of the U.S. and with a third of the per-capita GDP. They can't buy so many iPhones.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by Magic_Al

Russia: Less than half the population of the U.S. and with a third of the per-capita GDP. They can't buy so many iPhones.

But look at all the places with NATO and US trade embargoes they can re-export them to!

[Zlyden]

Never mind...

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by merdhead

Let's face its, Russia is a joke. Corrupt from the president down. They're more totalitarian today than under Lenin.

Already in 1880s Nietzsche predicted that a terrible (or beautiful ...) will to power was coming from Russia. Little did he suspect that a few decades later an uneducated army of the biggest thiefs and degenerates would create some of the most powerful and longest lasting regimes history has known. Since then, this country has been the paragon of vigorous and complete elimination of everything that was noble about itself or its society.

On the other hand, would the modern/western art (Kandinsky), music (Stravinsky), literature (Bulgakov) and philosophical thought (Dostoyevsky) have existed - in the way we know it today - without the inspiring sufferings of this most dark, detsructive and tallented of nations; the sufferings that culminated (but neither started nor ended ...) with the slave insurrection on 25 October 1917.

I thereby pay my respect - in the way Nietzsche would have paid it, no doubt - to this mysterious country and its people.

[digitalclips]

Originally Posted by nasdarq

Already in 1880s Nietzsche predicted that a terrible (or beautiful ...) will to power was coming from Russia. Little did he suspect that a few decades later an uneducated army of the biggest thiefs and degenerates would create some of the most powerful and longest lasting regimes history has known. Since then, this country has been the paragon of vigorous and complete elimination of everything that was noble about itself or its society.

On the other hand, would the modern/western art (Kandinsky), music (Stravinsky), literature (Bulgakov) and philosophical thought (Dostoyevsky) have existed - in the way we know it today - without the inspiring sufferings of this most dark, detsructive and tallented of nations; the sufferings that culminated (but neither started nor ended ...) with the slave insurrection on 25 October 1917.

I thereby pay my respect - in the way Nietzsche would have paid it, no doubt - to this mysterious country and its people.

... and continuing this deep and well researched post, don't forget they have some great looking ladies too
p.s. I Hereby or Therefore pay my respects' would read better I think.

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

... and continuing this deep and well researched post, don't forget they have some great looking ladies too

LOL - how could I have forgotten that most precious of assets that Russia no doubt still possesses ...

[Gaijin de Moscu]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

Ouch that was harsh! Of course we have such a corruption free system and wonderful President here in USA so we can of course judge others ...

One day my friends may we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, one day

Thanks for the voice of reason.

[macnugget]

The total should be 3.3 million per year, according to the article. 1.5 million *each* for the first two carriers, plus a third of a million per year for the third carrier.

[paxman]

Originally Posted by merdhead

Let's face its, Russia is a joke. Corrupt from the president down. They're more totalitarian today than under Lenin.

Simplification, much? Let's face it, you are the joke.

[Barabanshik]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce

I'm sure the GPS feature will prove popular, especially for working out how far into a foreign country your tanks can roam...

That is why US tanks are now so far away from home?
Let's stick to iPhone related discussions and live CNN and others to do the brainwashing ...

[Prince]

Originally Posted by nasdarq

Already in 1880s Nietzsche predicted that a terrible (or beautiful ...) will to power was coming from Russia. Little did he suspect that a few decades later an uneducated army of the biggest thiefs and degenerates would create some of the most powerful and longest lasting regimes history has known. Since then, this country has been the paragon of vigorous and complete elimination of everything that was noble about itself or its society.

On the other hand, would the modern/western art (Kandinsky), music (Stravinsky), literature (Bulgakov) and philosophical thought (Dostoyevsky) have existed - in the way we know it today - without the inspiring sufferings of this most dark, detsructive and tallented of nations; the sufferings that culminated (but neither started nor ended ...) with the slave insurrection on 25 October 1917.

I thereby pay my respect - in the way Nietzsche would have paid it, no doubt - to this mysterious country and its people.

Demonizing the Russian people was a critical element of NeoCon propaganda to depict America and Good and the USSR as Evil. While conservative Nixon and Kissinger attempted to make peace with the USSR through a policy of "detente," the NeoCons (including Chaney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld) worked to create a fantasy that the crumbling USSR was actually leading every terrorist group on earth and therefore an Evil that needed to be rallied against and feuded with.

CIA knew this to be absurd (essentially fantasy lifted from James Bond or Get Smart's CONTROL), but NeoCons took over the CIA and began using it to further their Good and Evil fantasy to inflame the US against the Russian people. The NeoCons took this so far that they ended up arming radicle terrorists fighting the USSR in Afghanistan, including the similarly nutty "Good vs Evil" Osama bin Laden, who saw Islam as Good and everyone else as Evil.

The NeoCons made Reagan a hero for railing against the "Evil USSR," and eventually "conquering" it, despite the fact that the US had already been in progressive talks with the USSR in the mid 70s and there was little basis for war left. When the USSR fell--which had nothing to do with Regan's acting and everything to do with the failure of Communism itself--NeoCons took credit for saving the world from Evil. But then they needed a new Evil.

After eight years of the longest peacetime expansion in US history under Clinton, the NeoCons got Bush W into the White House and immediately prepared for war with Iraq, another crumbling nation that posed zero threat to the US, and only minor irritation to US oil interests.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, trained by the NeoCon CIA in terrorism, attacks the US as his own "Evil," and the NeoCons turn it around and associate the attack with Iraq, an Evil they think they can defeat. However, rather than pursuing a Cold War with an actor president against an isolated caricature of Evil, the NeoCons started a hot war with Iraq, disposed its feeble dictator, but then dismissed the country's police and just scrambled to grab its oil. This turned Iraq into a real evil of chaos that resulted in far more dangerous warlords and fundamentalist clerics taking over portions of Iraq, people who had formerly been held in check by Iraq's dictator.

Well over 3,000 Americans were killed by this NeoCon war, more than bin Laden killed in 9/11. The NeoCons are really responsible for both, as well as the hundreds of thousands of "non-white" victims of war in Iraq itself. And now Iraq is breeding terrorists who hate the US, just like the NeoCon-CIA's involvement in Afghanistan did in its attempts to fight against the Evil USSR.

So no, the Russian people are not Evil, nor a stupid slave class, any more than Australia is a modern nation of criminals or the US is a modern nation of witch hunting religious extremists. Well at least two out of three. Expect Russia to eat up the iPhone just like Australia is devouring the Mac. And lets have more talk and less war.

[paxman]

Originally Posted by Prince

Expect Russia to eat up the iPhone just like Australia is devouring the Mac. And lets have more talk and less war.

Hear hear to that and the rest of your post. Did you by any chance see the fantastic documentary series "The Power of Nightmares" by Adam Curtis? I think it is available on the net.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares

[Dick Applebaum]

Originally Posted by digitalclips

Ouch that was harsh! Of course we have such a corruption free system and wonderful President here in USA so we can of course judge others ...

One day my friends may we all hold hands and sing Kumbaya, one day

...and we will provide them with the hands to strangle us with!

[rxer]

пиздец!!!
я бля в шоке)
надеюсь здесь есть админы бля,которые по русски шарят и не удалят это сообщение,потому что понимают всю правду

I am from Russia

1. Russian people earn enough to buy iPhone for 700$, MacBook Pro for 2500$, to buy flat, that costs about 150.000 euro at least(1 room flat)! thay can buy ferary, bently. about 5% of our Moscow students have iPhone, about 2% of our students have VERTU. But in Moscow people hate iPhone because it is not very good toy for play. As u know, Russian people are much more clever than American one. And each person want to have:ICQ, MSN, E-mail....etc... iPhone can have theese programs, but they are not very good... Symbian...is another story.
iPhone just a toy. many people sell it back...
2. Georgia... Americans think, that Rusia is an agressor! Do u know at least where Georgia is situated??? It is not amerian state! It is an independet country, whis is ruled by мудак и даун Bush. He want a war with Russia....But he has forgotten about our friends.........CHINA.....Japan....Kazakstan. The first napalm was from Georgia. Russia didnt make any strike!!! Osetia wants to be either independent or part of Russia


США это не государство. нет нации,нет истории. это Пампкин Пай какой то, ай айфон-херня! покупайте нокию!!!

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by Prince

Demonizing the Russian people was a critical element of NeoCon propaganda to depict America and Good and the USSR as Evil. While conservative Nixon and Kissinger attempted to make peace with the USSR through a policy of "detente," the NeoCons (including Chaney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld) worked to create a fantasy that the crumbling USSR was actually leading every terrorist group on earth and therefore an Evil that needed to be rallied against and feuded with.

CIA knew this to be absurd (essentially fantasy lifted from James Bond or Get Smart's CONTROL), but NeoCons took over the CIA and began using it to further their Good and Evil fantasy to inflame the US against the Russian people. The NeoCons took this so far that they ended up arming radicle terrorists fighting the USSR in Afghanistan, including the similarly nutty "Good vs Evil" Osama bin Laden, who saw Islam as Good and everyone else as Evil.

The NeoCons made Reagan a hero for railing against the "Evil USSR," and eventually "conquering" it, despite the fact that the US had already been in progressive talks with the USSR in the mid 70s and there was little basis for war left. When the USSR fell--which had nothing to do with Regan's acting and everything to do with the failure of Communism itself--NeoCons took credit for saving the world from Evil. But then they needed a new Evil.

After eight years of the longest peacetime expansion in US history under Clinton, the NeoCons got Bush W into the White House and immediately prepared for war with Iraq, another crumbling nation that posed zero threat to the US, and only minor irritation to US oil interests.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden, trained by the NeoCon CIA in terrorism, attacks the US as his own "Evil," and the NeoCons turn it around and associate the attack with Iraq, an Evil they think they can defeat. However, rather than pursuing a Cold War with an actor president against an isolated caricature of Evil, the NeoCons started a hot war with Iraq, disposed its feeble dictator, but then dismissed the country's police and just scrambled to grab its oil. This turned Iraq into a real evil of chaos that resulted in far more dangerous warlords and fundamentalist clerics taking over portions of Iraq, people who had formerly been held in check by Iraq's dictator.

Well over 3,000 Americans were killed by this NeoCon war, more than bin Laden killed in 9/11. The NeoCons are really responsible for both, as well as the hundreds of thousands of "non-white" victims of war in Iraq itself. And now Iraq is breeding terrorists who hate the US, just like the NeoCon-CIA's involvement in Afghanistan did in its attempts to fight against the Evil USSR.

So no, the Russian people are not Evil, nor a stupid slave class, any more than Australia is a modern nation of criminals or the US is a modern nation of witch hunting religious extremists. Well at least two out of three. Expect Russia to eat up the iPhone just like Australia is devouring the Mac. And lets have more talk and less war.

Oh dear. You are surfing in waters so shallow that I can hardly see your shadow from deep deep under the sea. Read Brothers Karamazov, and maybe then you will get a hunch feeling (I say, feeling, because Russia and the Russian character are not to be 'understood') what I am talking about.

And please read a bit more about world history pre-1980s (or Iraq war, even more so) before coming out so bluntly like that. Even a remote intention to compare Russia and Australia in terms of history, ethnics, culture, religion - and the general geopolitical modjo, be it past or present - smacks of total ignorance.

Most importantly, you get your facts wrong. There was no word 'evil' in anything I said about the Russian nation/character. Dark - yes; (self)destructive - yes; evil - no. Think again - is everything in your world measured by 'good' or 'evil'? If so, you lack colour, my friend, to say the least ... Worse still, and ironically, such a boring scale of measuring everything in life was in fact so typical of all those political figures to which you referred with such a profound disgust ...

Moreover, 'stupid'- never did I say that Russian people were like that. I said that this was probably the most talented nation, in fact ...

War? Bring it on! But get better equipped next time if you really want to go into this.

And please disregard the character who just posted above me - I think he is the best example of a worthy successor of the slave insurrection I was talking about. Russian people could be much better than that.

[Zlyden]

Damn! (Sorry, I have to say it)

We are on Mac-Apple-Products forum, right?

So, what the the heck the things you see on TV (in USA or Russia or in Europe) has to do with it?

Please, let's keep all kind lies to politicians and TV-news persons (this is their job, OK) and speak about iPhones for a few more posts...

[rxer]

nasdarq


Have u ever been to Russia or to Georgia?
Every man in USA or as u from England( now every this is called NATO) think that we have started the war in Chechna, that we have made the conflict in Ygoslavia, Iran,Irag,Afganistan,Sector Gaza... U think so because mass media show u falce!!!
1. Chechnya... this war is even described by Lermontov...this is partisanian war and it never stop( our guys only try to stop it...so we have victims...)
2. Afganistan....YEEeeeeeeeahh...we've started It...in the same way many centuries ago. we help to stop it, NATO say, that we are agressors! we kill people...but nato soldiers kill usual peple....Russian as evols...ciborgs
3. Everything about Saadam Huseyn... GODNESS!!! He is a great man! He has make the rise of economics! the petrol costed 0.1. euro when he ruled! People were happy...NOOOoooo...Nobody can live better the Americans are...NATO helps...every county lick ass to america. For example Baltian Countries, Ukraine....everythin but they were loved by NATO...
4. Sector Gaza....Yeeeeeeeh.... We are evols because we sell ammos and give products to victims of this war....we are evols!



everything! EVERYTHING u hear about Russia on your mass media is holly false!!!
In Russia everybody luaghs at NATO and company. There are many sites where u can read about how Euoropean and amerian media tell false! bash.org.ru for example. If u understood Russian like I know English, u've changed your opinion!


I live in Russia, I know whats matter indeed

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by Zlyden

Damn! (Sorry, I have to say it)

We are on Mac-Apple-Products forum, right?

So, what the the heck the things you see on TV (in USA or Russia or in Europe) has to do with it?

Please, let's keep all kind lies to politicians and TV-news persons (this is their job, OK) and speak about iPhones for a few more posts...

Sorry mate, I probably got somewhat carried away there. But it was fun nonetheless ...

By the way, my iPhone's battery is discharging so quickly that I can almost see it while looking at the bar ... God-damn that 2.0.2 software update. And that's in addition to the continually poor 3G reception and all those application break-downs ... I do sincerely hope (but don't expect, frankly speaking) that they will fix all those bugs by the time iPhone gets officially released in your country.

Plus - just noticed - my iPhone does not even power on after the battery has run out completely ... It's connected to the power socket and It continues showing a narrow red bar on the battery but it just doesn't power on ... Did anyone else had this problem? It's getting really annoying.

[nasdarq]

Rxer - you are trying very hard but you are barking up the wrong tree there. First of all, I have been to Russia (and Georgia too, in fact), I have a few Russian friends and I can even read - albeit not without difficulty - what you wrote in your previous post ... So my admittedly limited knowledge of Russia is based on my personal experience and opinion, not on any sort of media spin.

But please, of all people, Russians should be the last to criticise the Westerm media for any bias. Russia is in fact in the 140th place (!!!!) in the World media freedom index - have a look, and don't worry about any bias there because these charts are voted by journalists themselves, including Russian journalists ...

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=11715

Now, of course, you will see that U.S. is no leader in the domain of 'freedom of expression' either, being only in the 23d place in the World. Regretably, the U.K. fares even worse, being only 29th in the company of El Salvador and Dominican Republic ... Still, your country is there at the very back in the very dark league of its own ..

Admittedly, all the media in the U.S. is owned largely by 3 or 4 corporations (or groups of corporations) - however, in your country the media is owned by one 'corporation' ...

So please, no talk of 'bias by the Western media' or its 'propaganda'.

[Zlyden]

Originally Posted by nasdarq

I do sincerely hope (but don't expect, frankly speaking) that they will fix all those bugs by the time iPhone gets officially released in your country.

In fact the quality of cell phone reception in Moscow is just terrible. It is worse or better in other parts of Russia, depends on the region. But...

...but most people here see iPhone as a kind of fashionable/cool item they just want, no matter if they can use it at all. I do see people everyday with iPhones (previous model, not 3G) in metro train or just on the streets. So, well, there are really a lot of them here, despite the fact you can buy only smuggled iPhones here at the moment.

The present news you read above are kind of just "leaked". No official person have conformed or denied them yet. This information could be completely false or wrong in details, and published just because some news person wanted to draw some attention to him/herself his paper/magazine/website..

[rxer]

strange statistics....
for example...
10 Latvia 1,00
11 Estonia 2,00

They destroyed our monuments for the victory....and now they say, tha have made the crime against their population. They like fashism, they like SS. Usa...the freedome of the word... German press TWICE!!!TWICE have said that the freedom of the word in usa have a role only when government need this!



Ask your friends from Russia! Who have started this conflick and they will say all truth. Everything
If they'll say that Russai have started....

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by Zlyden

...but most people here see iPhone as a kind of fashionable/cool item they just want, no matter if they can use it at all.

I am afraid it's the case everywhere. This is a devise that still leaves a lot to be desired in many respects - I have no doubt you have read some of the previous news (and comments) here about various problems with the iPhone ...

Still, all in all I'm more or less satisfied with the devise, mostly because of two things: iPod and the browsing facility on the touch screen, which (still) compensates for all the remaining flaws.

I do hope also that some really useful applications will be released by way of the SDK (tethering, 'universal' media players, Skype, etc.) in the not-so-distant future.

[Zlyden]

Originally Posted by rxer

TWICE!!!TWICE....

Just SHUT UP, please, would ya?

Do not let our international company think that all the Russians are brainwashed idiots...

(Sorry... )

[nasdarq]

Originally Posted by rxer

strange statistics....
for example...
10 Latvia 1,00
11 Estonia 2,00

They destroyed our monuments for the victory....and now they say, tha have made the crime against their population. They like fashism, they like SS. Usa...the freedome of the word... German press TWICE!!!TWICE have said that the freedom of the word in usa have a role only when government need this!



Ask your friends from Russia! Who have started this conflick and they will say all truth. Everything
If they'll say that Russai have started....

All the Baltic states do well in this respect - maybe they learned something about the need to ensure press freedom from their experience under the Soviet rule

Well, since you like empirical evidence, I can tell you that I have been to Lithuania (no. 16 on the list), and it didn't feel like a State-controlled country, at least from the press freedom point of view. Their media is owned by a number of different private groups (including Tele3 of Sweden), and they even have a true public (but not Government-controlled) TV channel much like BBC ...

[merdhead]

Originally Posted by paxman

Simplification, much? Let's face it, you are the joke.

So you don't disagree with my statement, you just don't like me, much? I can live with that.

And how is saying that the government is corrupt a simplification. It's pretty plainly true. The last election was a sham, only marginally better than Zimbabwe.