iPhone rollout: TeliaSonera deal brings total to 67 countries
You can finally color Scandinavia and the Baltic States Apple red.
The news came Tuesday morning in a one-sentence press release of the kind that has become a cell phone-industry standard since Steve Jobs got into the business:
"TeliaSonera today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia later this year." (link)
With that announcement, Apple (AAPL) filled in one of the last remaining gaps in its international rollout of the iPhone, a new version of which is expected to be released in June.
The addition of these Nordic and Baltic States brings to 67 the total number of countries that will offer the iPhone for sale before the end of the year, according to the list maintained by APPLinvestors.
China is the last major holdout, but there was movement on that front over the weekend. See Did China just open the door to Apple's iPhone?
With 115 million subscribers, TeliaSonera (TLSN.ST) is the largest Nordic and Baltic State fixed-line, broadband and mobile operator, according to the latest MobileWorld report. Based in Stockholm, it serves some of the world's most sophisticated cell phone users.
@XamaxX
it was announced that Apple is in negotiations with Royal KPN about signing an exlusive iPhone deal for the Netherlands.
We did post today.
Uh, François, Spain was announced officially by its CEO, look it up.
Besides, Telefonica is the owner of O2 and it was Telefonica's President/CEO, not O2's, to fly over to California to talk Steve Jobs into a deal.
Telefonica is huge and it has a very important stake in Brasil, another big market…
Holland is still not included….. Not the end of the world. I enjoy my iPhone anyway and will get the new one immediately.
Since it was a one sentence press release, the question of wether it is an exclusive deal or not is yet to be answered. I wonder if more announcements are to follow this week.
are you missing a decimal point? On my screen, it looks like Telia Sonora has 115 million subscribers; I kinda doubt that one company has more subscribers than these countries have people?
ex ped: TeliaSonora covers more than just these countries. It's also got subscribers in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Spain. The map on its website extends all the way across Russia.
That website is wrong. More, Spain was not officially announced. Liechtenstain is not included but at least Swisscom will cover this little state near Switzerland.
Correction:
I was trying to add that I hope they can all access iTunes on the new iPhones.