Taken With An iPhone

Classic Red Ford Mustang

My first chance to catch one in the wild in the US.

I caught these gentleman playing cards at the food court at Westfield Wheaton Mall.

Or so says Gizmodo. According to a source very very close to the launch, Apple will announce the new iPhone at the WWDC on June 9th and it will be available worldwide after that.

This news is nothing new considering all the reports and rumors that have surfaced recently but more confirmation never hurts. Having said that, as always, I will believe it when Steve gets on stage and has one in his hand.

A report on Fortune states that Apple is close to a deal to bring the 3G iPhone to South Korea and Japan. The deal would be with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and Korea Telecom Freetel.

Between the two companies there are a possible 62 million subscribers who could buy an iPhone. These two markets already have some of the most advanced cellphones and available features in the world so it may be harder for Apple to gain market share there.

Fortune

Last week Orange announced that they would be selling the iPhone in more countries including several in Africa. Those African countries were announced this week.

Those countries are Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Niger, Mali, Kenya, Cameroon, Madagascar, Botswana and the Central African Republic.

With the additional markets that have been announced by Apple for the upcoming 3G iPhone the potential users have grown to mind boggling numbers.

Current markets - 6, Potential subscribers - 153 million

Upcoming markets - 42, Potential subscribers - 575 million

These numbers do not include the 375 million possible users in China. Now how many does Steve think they will sell?

Numbers from Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray.

Mayorga Coffee Factory

Orange, the French wireless company, announced today that they had signed a deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in several European countries, the Middle East and Africa.

Their one sentence statement listed the countries as Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland. African countries will be added later in the year.

In Belgium and Romania they will be the exclusive provider. The other countries will either be co-exclusive or non-exclusive. Orange spokesman, Bertrand Deronchaine, would not give any further details.