Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Softbank, 3G, iPhone | Themes: Business, Smartphones
Softbank has officially announced its prices for the latest 3G iPhone in Japan.
Softbank finally announced the deal to become official iPhone peddler at the beginning of this month. Talks had been going on for quite a while and competitor, DoCoMo was also thought to be in talks with the tutti-frutti company. In fact, according to Reuters, DoCoMo has said the company is still in talks with Apple.
The announcement comes a few weeks after similar announcements from other carriers like AT&T and O2 UK and it seems as though Softbank, the official carrier for the iPhone in Japan, will follow AT&T’s example, charging roughly the same amount for the 3G Jesus-phone as opposed to the UK carrier, who announced plans to offer the phone for free with some of it’s more expensive plans.
So, how ‘bout those prices? Reuters reports Japanese iPhoners can look forward to paying 23,040 yen ($215) for the 8GB model of the 3G iPhone or 34,560 yen ($320) for the 16 GB version.
Softbank’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, told Reuters that it would not be the price that attracts customers, but the iPhone itself and that the company expects iPhones to be a scarcity during the period following the launch.
"There have been users who were just attracted to our low price, but the main point this time is feature attractiveness rather than price. we expect the first lot to evaporate instantly. We in the company will probably fight to get one as well. Supplies will likely be scarce for a while."
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They are purposely doing short supply to increase the demand for this product. its common thing to do in Japan.
Probably give celebs and those people with connections the phone first... And watch the general public dream about the iphone someday...
The problem is a standard phone here in Japan has quite a few features that are years ahead of the iPhone (save for its interface) - we can pay for the train, the bus, or the shopping using our phone as a touchless cash card, we can watch HD quality TV for free by picking up over the air broadcasts even while moving in a high speed train, GPS, fingerprint/face recognition, 2 cameras one of which is > 2 MP and the other one used for videophone calls (you can check out DoCoMo's website if it sounds too good to be true). iPhone will sell only as a fad and it will fade away.