iPhone price war in France - UK next?

French iPhone in price war
French iPhone in price war

Now that the iPhone is being offered on multiple carriers in France, it's sparked something of a price war over the Christmas period.

After the courts ordered Apple to end the exclusivity of the device in France at the behest of Bouygues Telecom, Orange was joined by the aforementioned company and SFR to offer the phone.

And the latter seem to have got into a little pricing scrap, with Orange offering the iPhone 3GS 16GB at €59 (£52), down from €149 (£133), with the 8GB iPhone 3G selling for €19 (£16) and the 32GB iPhone 3GS starting at €179 (£160).

Heavy on the pocket

However, this does come with a contract at around £35 per month, so it's still tipping the costly scales at the wrong end.

By comparison, SFR is selling the 8GB 3G iPhone for €29 (£25), the 16GB 3GS for €99 (£88) and the 32GB for €199 (£177).

These all compare favourably to UK pricing, which means there's a European disparity over the pricing structure that surely can be exploited on our shores.

Since Orange, Vodafone and Tesco are now all offering the iPhone too, it's possible the pricing will start to shift in the near future – especially with a new iPhone around the corner (yes, we know it's not confirmed... we're just going out on a very, very likely limb).

Via 9to5mac.com

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.