A discussion about the software industry and their coders

iPhone Lovers in India won't have to wait too long with Airtel and Vodafone (VOD) set to release the cool gadget before the end of 2008.

1) Apple and Airtel (India's largest private telecom operator) have announced the availability of iPhone3G in India by the end of 2008 (iPhone 3G, dubbed as a phone + ipod with internet , is set to be released on July 11, 2008 at a delicious price point of $199 in the US):

Bharti Airtel and Apple® today announced that they will be bringing the highly anticipated  iPhone™ 3G to customers in India later this year. iPhone 3G combines  all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is  twice as fast* as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for  expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the  hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

2) Vodafone has announced that it would bring iPhone to 10 markets including India.

Vodafone today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten of its markets around the globe. Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

For Indian consumers what I think adds a cherry on their iphone pudding is broad consumer choice. 2 large Indian operators should expand the iPhone / Apple market in India significantly as long as prices are rightly.There is no visibility on prices right now.

India is a large mobile phone market. Apple (AAPL) has had very limited success in the PC market in India, hopefully with iPhone the jinx would be broken.