Apple's iPhone Makes Quiet Entry in India

Only a

crowd turned up for the midnight launch of Apple's iPhone in New Delhi Friday. It included a
high school student, who said he wants to show off the

in school, and an entrepreneur who bought six sets for himself and his friends.

Daytime saw a handful more customers like executive, Abhishek Jain, turn up at a New Delhi
store to buy the iPhone. Jain is

impressed by the device, which combines a music and video player, cellphone and web
browser.

"No other phone can match it. This is the best phone available in the world. This is what I see. I
am very excited, I am very, very excited."

But there was no sign of people

for hours, or the kind of

witnessed when the iPhone was launched in several European and Asian countries last month.

Part of the reason is the cost - the iPhone is selling for over $

in India, triple its price in the United States. That is because unlike the United States, Indian
mobile operators are not

the phone.

Airtel, one of the companies which launched the iPhone, has

off the high price tag, saying it is targeting the "high-end achiever and youth segment."

But many young people, like Ankita Chaudhury, doubt whether they will buy the iPhone
anytime soon.

"I don't know if I want to buy it or not because it's priced

high."
Chief editor at technology publisher CyberMedia, Prasanto K. Roy, says the price will impact
sales.

"There are lots of people who have been waiting for two years for this, and they are going to put
down the money. But the numbers are clearly not going to be anywhere near what we could
have expected, simply, not just because of the price itself, but because of the fact that there is
spread

of pricing worldwide, and this is three times the U.S. price, so you can actually order it off e-Bay
including customs duty, so that actually puts quite a

on the whole thing."

In fact, according to a recent survey, 150,000 iPhones, bought in other countries, are already
being used in India. The phones can be

with software easily available in the gray market.

But the companies selling the iPhone are hoping that people will now prefer to buy it in India to
get full benefits such as the

The model being sold in India is the same as that launched in other markets - the 3G or third
generation phone, although India has yet to launch 3G networks.

India is one of the biggest markets for mobile handsets -

million were sold last year. Most of these are lower priced phones, but there is also a huge
demand for high-end phones among the growing numbers of

and middle class people in the country.