The term ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ was coined by American artist Andy Warhol in the late 1960s to explain the condition where, in the future, everyone and everything will enjoy fleeting celebrity status. It’s an expression that almost every iPhone owner in India has come to understand over the last month or two. Or, to be precise, ever since the day news of the India launch of the device broke across media. Total strangers sidle up to the iPhone owner with a look of wonder and start asking questions about the gadget — where it was bought from, how much it cost, is it compatible with all cellular networks, of how many megapixels is its camera, does it have an inbuilt FM radio, when is it being launched in India.... Among friends and colleagues, the iPhone owner assumes the mien of a knowledgeable conjuror, wowing everyone with the neat tricks the gadget performs.

As a conversation piece, the iPhone has had few parallels in recent months.

That’s not entirely surprising, given the extent of media coverage that the July 2008 global launch of the iPhone 3G has received in international media: stories of mile-long queues outside stores, across countries and continents, have routinely made headlines. Add to this the high degree of suspense that’s cloaked the launch of the phone in India — at the time of going to press, barely a week from the formal launch, little was known about the product’s pricing or its availability, apart from the fact that it could be pre-booked through Vodafone and Airtel — and you have the kind of cocktail that can pique anyone’s interest. Purely for the record, the iPhone 2G is estimated to have sold 10 million units worldwide, while the iPhone 3G sold 1 million units in the first week of its launch.

One of the best indicators of consumer interest is the number of enquiries a product generates. While both Vodafone and Airtel choose to maintain strict silence on any enquiry pertaining to the iPhone, retailers — even those who aren’t part of the present distribution plan — vouch for its demand. “There’s a huge demand for the iPhone. People want to know when it will arrive,” says Ajit Joshi, CEO & MD, Infiniti Retail, owner of electronics store Croma, which currently retails two other well-known Apple products — the MacBook and iPod. For its part, RPG Cellucom says the device will be available in roughly 50% of its 200 stores, mostly in up-market locations. “Not everyone can afford an iPhone. So we will only stock it in prime locations like Mumbai’s Linking Road and Delhi’s Greater Kailash,” says Adrian Pillai, manager – marketing, RPG Cellucom.

Interestingly, even retailers like Alpha in Vile Parle, Mumbai, claim Apple’s iconic smartphone will be available at their store in September. Meanwhile, both Croma and The Mobile Store, which has 1,100 outlets across the country, are currently in talks with Vodafone and Airtel, seeking permission to retail the iPhone. What Datamonitor says, however, is that Airtel and Vodafone are planning to sell the handset through 250,000 retail outlets — which include their own shops and other organised retail outlets. Queries to Apple India were routed to the company’s Singapore office: which, in an email response, helpfully told us everything that was already known — that the iPhone would be launched through Airtel and Vodafone.

While numbers are virtually impossible to come by, there are already lots of iPhones in the country, purchased off the grey market — where the 8GB iPhone is priced at about Rs 28,000 and the 16GB model comes at about Rs 34,000 — or brought into the country by friends and relatives from abroad. And that, at one level, should be a cause for alarm for the existing mobile handset marketers in India. Nokia Corporation’s global president and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was in India in June this year, and while fielding questions on the imminent launch of the iPhone in India, admitted that it would have an impact on Nokia. “When the iPhone comes to India, it adds to our competitors here. The entry of a new product in the market creates customer interest and it, therefore, impacts us in India,” he had said.

Source:economictimes