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Vodafone NZ Finally Announces iPhone Pricing

By ⋅ July 6, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment
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Update: plan prices have been announced. The Vodafone site is being hammered, but there is a copy of the pricing on Geekzone. The upshot is if you want a 8GB iphone for NZ$199, you’re signing up for NZ$250 per month for 24 months. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS PER MONTH.

Update 2: A helpful Geekzone user has created this chart of total ownership cost on the various plans:

iPhone Plan Costs

Original Post:
Vodafone NZ seems to be last off the block in announcing pricing for the iPhone, which is strange given that they will be the first in the world to be selling them. The frustration has led to furious debate, fueled by lack of information from Vodafone.

So today, less than one week out from release, Vodafone releases a tiny bit of information:

  • Yes there will be a midnight (NZST) release
  • The iPhone will “start from” NZ$199 (about US$150)

Given the lack of plan pricing, I think we can be rightly skeptical about the $199 price point. Vodafone sells the Nokia N95 off-plan for about NZ$1200, so they are not adverse to charging crazy prices. My bet is that the price of a plan required to subsidise the iPhone down to $199 will be in the order of $200 per month.

More tomorrow at 10am.

Discussion

8 Responses to “Vodafone NZ Finally Announces iPhone Pricing”

  1. who the hell can afford $250/month for a phone?

    Posted by dave | July 7, 2008, 6:53 pm
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  2. Take a closer look at the VF site and you’ll see that you can buy the iPhone 3G WITHOUT CONTRACT for $979 (8GB) or $1129 (16GB). At current rates that’s around US$770 for an 8GB phone – pretty much what was expected for a no-contract buy.

    Posted by MacGeek | July 7, 2008, 8:32 pm
    Reply to this comment

  3. From what i can see it’s not possible to buy the iphone WITHOUT CONTRACT….. from vodafone help….

    Question

    I am a Vodafone Prepay customers ? can I get iPhone 3G on Prepay
    Answer

    No, iPhone will not be available on Prepay.

    You need to have subscribed to either an iPhone plan or alternatively a standard On account plan (You Choose, talkZone, or Corporate) with a compatible Broadband plan for mobiles.

    so I’m not too sure what the whole ‘handset only’ price is all about??

    Posted by umwhat | July 7, 2008, 10:59 pm
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Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. [...] First of all, the phone costs a freaking small fortune unless you go with their most expensive plan. And if you go with their most expensive plan, it costs a goddamn mint! The prices should be approximated to about 75% of their NZ amount, but even so you’re looking at a nearly $200 per month cell phone plan, people. This can’t be happening. [thanks for the tip, Ben] [...]
    CrunchGear » Archive » Vodafone NZ iPhone 3G plans: $250 per month for 1 gig of data - July 7, 2008

  2. [...] First of all, the phone costs a freaking small fortune unless you go with their most costly plan. And if you go with their most high-priced plan, it costs a goddamn mint! The prices should be approximated to about 75% of their NZ amount, but even so you’re looking at a nearly $200 per month cell phone plan, people. This can’t be happening. [thanks for the tip, Ben] [...]
    Vodafone NZ iPhone 3G plans: $200 per month for 1 gig of data | official tech blog - July 7, 2008

  3. [...] questa tabella ? presentato un riassunto dei costi a cui andranno incontro gli utenti neozelandesi di iPhone. [...]
    Tariffe Vodafone in Nuova Zelanda - iPhone Italia - La prima risorsa italiana sull’Apple iPhone - July 8, 2008

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