Israelis ignore debut of iPhones, world ends

December 9, 2009 - 12:20 PM by David

iPhone_israelTwo years after it was launched in the US and Europe, the wildly popular Apple iPhone is hitting the Israeli market this week.

All three of Israel’s main cellular providers – Partner Communications (Orange), Cellcom Israel and Pelephone Communications – signed deals to distribute the iPhone with Apple’s official representative in Israel, iDigital Ltd. Each of the carriers is being required to buy 80,000 iPhones to resell, which means that there’s going to be alot of Israelis – who are already world leaders in per capita cell phone usage – walking around with the damn things in the near future.

Polls reported in the Israeli financial media showed that nearly 25 percent of Israeli cellular users want an iPhone, and that nearly 30 percent would switch to a different provider if theirs didn’t offer it. In Israel, the iPhone was set to retail for NIS 2,800 (about $735), but each provider was expected to subsidize NIS 2,000 ($525) of that amount. Customers would pay NIS 800 for the phone, be charged a monthly iPhone fee of NIS 150, and pay for monthly airtime and data packages.

At the mall inside Jerusalem’s Central Bus station, the Cellcom store was waiting for a deluge of customers when the iPhone went on sale at midnight on Wednesday morning. Salesman Marc Frankel told The Jerusalem Post that there has been substantial advance interest in buying the iPhone.

“Absolutely, we already have a list full of names of people who are ordering the iPhone once we have it,” Frankel said. “There has always been an interest in the iPhone, and we expect there to be a lot more names to add to that list.”

According to some reports, there are already 10,000 iPhone users in Israel, who bought their phones abroad. The deliberations in Apple about marketing the phone here were covered nicely earlier this year in a post by Harry.

For some reason, Cellcome received a 24-hour jump on Pelephone and Orange where it will only be sold from Thursday morning. iDigital, which opened the first Apple store in the Ramat Aviv Mall last year, will sell the iPhones at Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv on Thursday and launch a concept store at Haifa’s Grand Canyon Mall at the end of the month.

After a wait of two years, Israelis are evidently going to take to this latest communication device with a vengeance and enthusiasm that is totally in character.

Tags: , , , , , • Category: A New Reality, Business, General, Israeliness, Life, Technology 

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One Comment on Israelis ignore debut of iPhones, world ends

  1. Haveil Havalim #247: Chanukah 2009/5770 Edition | The Israel Situation on Sun, Dec 13th 2009 3:02 AM

    2. [...] what sometimes feels like fiction, Israelity noticed that Israelis are not taking to the iPhone, signaling the possible end of the world.  Those snazzy folks at Israel21C also snapped a photo of [...]

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