Vodafone bites the Apple

Vodafone Group plc said it will roll out Apple Inc.’s iPhone later this year in 10 markets, after its CEO Arun Sarin disparaged the EDGE speeds delivered on the first iPhone and shunned a deal with Apple last year.
A Vodafone spokesman said that no further detail would be available on the rollouts’ timing or whether the deal meant that the world’s second-largest operator had reversed itself because it now will receive a 3G iPhone.
Apple, as usual, said nothing.
But word spread via various blogging sites that AT&T Mobility reportedly has barred its employees from taking vacations between June 15 and July 12; a similar measure was taken last year during the original iPhone launch.
(Fortune picked up and reprinted the purported AT&T Mobility memo, attributing it to “The Boy Genius Report,” an unidentified source that has in the past produced documents and product photographs that have turned out to be credible.)
If the purported memo is real, the implication, of course, is that Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs will announce the 3G iPhone in that timeframe and AT&T Mobility wants its staff available to serve demand. Whether AT&T Mobility customers or those of its rivals will in fact produce another spike in iPhone sales upon the release of a 3G model remains to be seen.
The timing for AT&T Mobility – if indeed the 3G iPhone release is imminent – may coincide with delivery of similar units to Vodafone for what would likely be a staggered rollout to 10 of its markets. Those markets are Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, India, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa and Turkey.
In Italy, not only will Vodafone’s subsidiary, Vodafone Italia, launch the device, but so will Telecom Italia – the larger of the two operators – according to that operator.
The upshot of two operators launching Apple’s handset will be debated. But the implication is that Apple may have revised or dropped its original terms for a deal, which is widely believed but unconfirmed to include exclusive rights for an operator to sell the device in exchange for a slice of the resulting data revenue. The size of that slice has never been confirmed but estimates range as high as 20% to 30% of iPhone-related data revenue. That strategy has greatly benefited AT&T Mobility, which has attracted new subscribers from its rivals, but whether that strategy has or will work in Europe and other markets is an open question.
While many analysts believe that Apple is on track to ship the 10 million units in 18 months that the company has set as a goal, price cuts at T-Mobile Germany and at O2 in the United Kingdom in past weeks led to speculation that European consumers were less than enthusiastic about a high-priced EDGE product.
Thus Vodafone’s announcement and subsequent rollouts will be closely watched for the 3G vs. EDGE issue, handset pricing, whether the device will be available locked or unlocked and the nature of various operators’ data service plans.