Apple iPhone 3G makes its India debut

New Delhi, Aug 22: iPhone, the much-awaited

multimedia rich mobile phone from Apple Computers, is

finally available in India with the stroke of the midnight.

The entry-level model is priced at Rs 31,000 for a 8GB

memory, while the other model with 16 GB memory is priced at

Rs 36,100.

Both Vodafone and Airtel ...

mid-night and have priced the product at parity with each

other.

Airtel, which had opened pre-bookings for the phones,

today said it has already received booking queries of over 2.

lakh.

to deposit an amount of Rs 5,000.

However, Vodafone sent SMS to its prospective customers to

pay an advance of Rs 10,000 for booking the device.

Airtel said the devices bundled with its service would be

launched in six cities Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata,

Bangalore and Hyderabad.

available from 400 stores across six cities.

The iPhone with the Airtel connection would come with a

500 MB free memory.

Airtel has already trained 3,000 employees, including

sales team, call centre executives and after sales service

personnel.

According to Naveen Mishra, Analyst, Communications

Research, IDC India, "The iPhone with Apple's brand equity,

stunning looks and aesthetics is being viewed as the 'ultimate

consumer mobile device to own' and is being promoted as such

by the vendor.

"The phone features best-in-class music, first-of-its

kind Graphical User Interface (GUI) and high speed 3G

capabilities, he said.