Apple Delivers iPhone
Cingular exclusive partnership for years to come
"Our partner is going to be Cingular, Jobs says, adding that it's the best and most popular network in the country with 58 million subscribers. Cingular is going to be Apple's exclusive partner in the U.S. "
"He says it's a multiyear exclusive partnership, only available with Cingular wireless services."
Hopefully Apple will release a Cingular WCDMA version in time for Christmas.
Cing prolly shelled out some $$$ for the exclusive (and/or promised tremendous advertising and store presence, preferential selling, etc.), but all exclusive deals come to an end. CDMA is the majority of the market in the US, and Cingular by itself is only one-quarter of the market, doesn't make sense long-term to sell to only 1/4 of the market.
But Cing will help insure iPhones early success by pimpin' the livin' hell out of it at launch and early on, which is prolly what Jobs wanted- security.
then again, apple hasn't in the past cared that much about selling to a limited audience. but i think i've lost some respect for Jobs since he said cingular is the best. they have some great advantages, but i personally thought the cellular service was horrible. staticy, dropped calls and that speaker buzz issue.
"Ships Stateside in June, Europe in fourth quarter, Asia in 2008."
jayinwny said:
CDMA is the majority of the market and Cingy 1/4? Ummmm.......no. Better re-think that statement.
Nope. Better re-read what I said instead... I said US market:
"CDMA is the majority of the market in the US, and Cingular by itself is only one-quarter of the market, doesn't make sense long-term to sell to only 1/4 of the market."
There's 229 million cellphone customers in the US:
229,916,355 Estimated Current US Wireless Subscribers http://www.ctia.org
Cingular has 58 million of them. Do the math, and that's 25%, or 1/4 of the US market. So, strike one on you.
And yeah, CDMA is the majority of the US market. We got Verizon, with 56 million customers. We have the Sprint po...
(continues)
You can call strike one on moi if ya like. Still, the point remains... its crazy to sell to only 1/4 of the US market long-term.
I'm sure it's as much to do with what verizon does to their phones and the phones features and the huge $$ cingular is paying Apple as is it about the technology though.
Lucas.
karmavore said:
This device willl shift Cingular/ GSM MS through the roof!!! Everyone has an iPod and everyone will want this phone.
Yeah, iPhone will be a hit. But its not a mass-market phone- not at $499 or $599, plus a two-yr contract. The effect for Cing will be nice but limited.
Even Apple says its goal is only to capture 1% of the worldwide cellphone market. âšī¸
SystemShock said:Smart man you are SystemShock đ
That it does. And I do own Apple stock, btw. đ
or the fact that vzw douses their phones with their own proprietary software and an apple/vzw colab wouldnt work. or even the cost of the phone itself its a rarity i see vzw customers pay more than $250.00 for any given device at any given time. with the exception of a FEW phones.
sowhatsowhat10 said:
did you ever stop to think this may lead vzw to strike up a deal with another large manu. of mp3 players. like Toshiba and the gigabeat.
Ugh. I can see it now... the ZunePhone, exclusively on Verizon. đŗ
Blaugh. Partnering with Microsoft is a poor second to partnering with Apple these days. âšī¸
Cell-Vision said:
Hey SystemShock, you forgot T-Mobile. They are also GSM so GSM is more then 25% of the U.S. market. So get off the CDMA high horse.
That wasn't the issue. I said that Cingular is 25% of the US market, which they are.
I think everyone is aware of the existence of T-Mobile, and the fact that they are GSM. However, the existence of T-Mobile does not change the fact that CDMA is more popular in the US than GSM is currently.
So... what was it you were complaining about again? đŗ
Cingular, a unit of AT&T (up $0.17 to $33.98, Charts), will be Apple's sole U.S. partner. It's an exclusive multiyear agreement, which means no other carrier will be able to sell the iPhone through 2009.
Either Apple comes out with other phone models that aren't exclusive, or I wait until a) iPhone comes on a really good network (aka not Cingular), or b) Cing's network finally improves to the point where I'm ok with them.
This forum is closed.