Unlocked 3G iPhone wont enter the grey markets (Probably)

Although the 1st Gen iPhone never made it to Asia officially, we saw thousands of them coming in Unlocked and selling like Hot Cakes. But this might not be the case with New iPhone 3G which is due to launch in India and several other countries later this year.

The original iPhone were sold by Apple Stores (online and offline) without a AT&T contract activated. This allowed traders to purchase these devices from Apple and instead of going over to AT&T to activate a plan under the 2yr contract with them, the devices were exported out of the US. But this time around since the iPhone's are significantly subsidized by Apple / AT&T (starting @ $199) a lot of care has been taken to avoid a similar situation.

The new Apple iPhone 3G wont sell online ++ you cannot buy it without activating a service plan from AT&T (even at the Apple stores). So we believe that this time iPhones wont make it to the Grey markets and fans would have to wait for the official launch by Vodafone and Airtel.

Since the supply of the original 1st Gen iPhone has stopped the Grey Market rates for the same has jumped by nearly Rs 9000 ($200) in India.

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