Vodafone and Airtel will be launching Apple IPhone in India on 22^nd August. Both have disclosed that price would be 31K for 8GB 3G IPhone and 36K for 16 GB. Just too much for a small gadget where I can look for LCD TV at my home for same price. Lets see how many of spoiled brat will be buying IPhone in India when it costs approx INR 8.5K in US ($199=8.5K INR approx) for 8GB 3G model. This makes Indian counterpart four times expensive than the US one. Given this, it would make sense to buy one Apple IPod for 12K and a good mobile phone for 10K instead. Agreed that it costs less in US because it comes with 2 years service contract but still it is much cheaper out there. There is no comparison of India’s per capita income with the US. 

I am sure that Vodafone and Airtel will be charging premiums in near terms only with this launch and will be forced to reduce the prices later. Price will anyway come down when the hype of IPhone will subside in India. They may come up with IPhone with attached service contract to make the deal lucrative. I am sure that it would be difficult for Apple, Vodafone and Airtel to sell IPhone at this price considering tough competition from HTC and Blackberry. HTC offers similar good looking product but it comes below 15K whereas Blackberry is in the same range as HTC and offers secure official email messaging support. 

My suggestion for everyone is to wait for couple of months for IPhone or ask your friends in US to ship one for you.