GERMANY: German court rules T-Mobile can sell iPhone with contract
- 00:00:37
- ITN Source
GERMANY: German court rules T-Mobile can sell iPhone with contract
Deutsche Telekom scored a victory in a legal battle with rival Vodafone over sales conditions for the coveted Apple iPhone, which T-Mobile sells exclusively in Germany. A German court ruled on Tuesday (December 4) that Deutsche Telekom's mobile unit can make customers who buy the music-playing and web-browsing device take out a T-Mobile contract as well and may continue to offer the device with a locked SIM card. A locked card prevents the device from being used on rival networks. T-mobile welcomed the ruling, saying that "today's decision did not surprise us since we were previously convinced about the lawfulness of our decision." Spokesman Philipp Humm added that the verdict "confirmed our belief." At Vodafone's Germany headquarters in Dusseldorf, company spokesman Thomas Ellerbeck told Reuters Television that the court decision was not in the consumer's interest. "That's a little like selling a BMW that only runs on "Aral" petrol," Ellerbeck said, referring to one of Germany's best known petrol station chains. Deutsche Telekom secured an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in Germany, where Apple has no stores. Customers had to sign up to a 24-month T-Mobile contract costing a minimum of 1,176 euros (1,734 U.S. dollars) in order to buy the 399-euro phone. Vodafone had obtained a temporary court injunction preventing T-Mobile from locking the iPhone's SIM card and offering it only in combination with a T-Mobile contract. T-Mobile said it planed to return to its original sales conditions for the iPhone as soon as possible. British Vodafone lost out to T-Mobile in Germany, Telefonica's O2 in Britain and France Telecom's Orange in France. In Britain the iPhone costs 269 pounds (555 U.S. dollars) on top of an 18-month contract costing a minimum of 35 pounds per month. In the United States, Apple sold 1.1 million iPhones in the quarter to end-September for up to 3,000 U.S. dollars each including a compulsory two-year service contract with AT&T.
ITN Source | December 5, 2007
