Orange to Peddle iPhone in Eastern Europe, Africa

Orange, a subsidiary of France Telecom, has signed a new deal with Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) to offer the iPhone to its customers in several parts of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. The company already has an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the phone in France.

Orange will begin selling the phone to its customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and its African markets later this year. The company's markets in Africa include Botswana, Madagascar, Niger and Senegal.

France Telecom has more than 172 million customers -- two-thirds of whom are Orange customers -- on five continents.

Neither Orange nor France Telecom responded to requests for comment.

The Orange deal follows a series of hookups with several other wireless carriers around the world who signed contracts to sell the iPhone.

"Apple wants to dominate the world with the iPhone, and I think they're going to have a varying degree of success , depending upon the country," said wireless analyst Jeff Kagan.

"[Apple's] got a very big base of loyal customers," he told MacNewsWorld, "and they know how to market to them. These are customers that have an emotional connection to these devices. [Apple] would love to have that in every country around the world."

Wheeling and Dealing

Earlier this week, Apple reportedly signed agreements with Singapore Telecommunications and three of its affiliates to bring the phone to Singapore, Australia, India and the Philippines.

On May 6, both Telecom Italia and Vodafone unveiled deals with Apple. Later this year, Telecom Italia will start selling the phone in Italy, and Vodafone will offer the device to customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.

Later this year, Rogers Communications plans to bring the iPhone to Canada, and America Movil will start selling it in Latin American countries. The Mexico City-based company has subscribers in 16 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico.

Apple has other deals to sell the phone in the U.S. (AT&T), Germany (Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile) and the UK (O2).

Also, China Mobile and Apple reportedly have discussed bringing the iPhone to that country.

Counting Down to 3G

Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Nonexclusive carrier agreements will help the company reach that goal, said Chris Hazelton, senior analyst, mobile devices, for IDC Both Orange and Vodafone have contracts to sell the device in Egypt.

"Going with single carriers in single countries will make it harder for Apple to meet that mark," Hazelton told MacNewsWorld.

The iPhone's popularity may be enough to overcome the single-seller obstacle, though.

"We have to wait and see how each market responds," said Kagan. "If they don't respond well, then Apple has to go back to the drawing board on the marketing . ... [But] I don't think you're going to run into a market where it's not popular. There's plenty of opportunity."

Meanwhile, U.S. customers are awaiting Apple's unveiling of a 3G iPhone -- which is expected to take place within the next few weeks -- as supplies of the original model are drying up.

Jennifer Bowcock, an Apple spokesperson, declined to comment on the time line for the 3G iPhone launch.

"It looks like [the launch is] going to be around the one year anniversary," Kagan opined. "I think it will be wildly successful." Apple launched the iPhone on June 29, 2007.