Europe is turning out to be a tougher nut for the iPhone to crack than the US markets tame to AT&T pressure ‘ and this week Vodafone put a spoke in the German launch by winning a court injunction which threatened to keep the iPhone off the market. In reaction T-Mobile has had to cave in, and allow the iPhone to be sold both in a two year contract, but also has had to put it on the market to be sold separately to work on any network.
Telefonica’s O2 in the UK has managed to bring the product to market without mishap, but German law seems to mean that the device cannot be both exclusive and tied to a contract, and most people are reading French Law in much the same way.
Initially a Hamburg court granted an injunction to Vodafone and this will be heard in two weeks in full, but meanwhile T-Mobile has put the device up for sale at €999 ($1,481) in the hope that it will be recouping as much profit from that deal, as it would from a two year contract. The two year contract would cost a total of €1,176 ($1,744). This is compared to the purchase price of the iPhone of €399 euros ($591) when bought with a two year contract.
While we’re not lawyers, that high pricing is almost certain to be a move that breaks another German or European law, and there is the distinct possibility that Germany, followed by France, will find that this punitive purchase price may have to have some bearing on the cost to supply the device.
Germany is one place where Apple so far has not managed to build out Apple stores in Europe, so it is entirely reliant on T-Mobile for any sales of the iPhone at all.
T-Mobile began selling the device on November 9 when Vodafone raised the legal objection, and now T-Mobile has had to offer to unlock all of the phones sold so far, but says it intends to appeal the decision and may seek damages.
Vodafone is reported in the press saying that it won’t file similar injunctions in other countries, but then again in France, the other place where this is likely to work, it is a minority shareholder in SFR, so it would be SFR filing any objection there, not Vodafone.
T-Mobile sold 10,000 iPhone contracts on the first day ranging from €49 to €89 a month.