Orange to sell unlocked iPhones in France
Well, well... looks like Apple has been backed into a corner by French law and will be releasing an unlocked iPhone in France after all. While no one will say precisely how much the unlocked iPhone will cost (the locked Orange-network iPhone will cost €399) …
Context & Ripple Effects
When Apple cut its August 2007 Europe iPhone deal, exclusivity was the price of entry: T-Mobile, Orange and O2 each won sole rights in their home markets, with Orange taking France. That structure now meets a hard limit — French law requires handsets be usable on any network, and Apple has conceded by authorizing an unlocked iPhone for Orange's French lineup.
The concession matters because it is the first crack in the exclusive-carrier model Apple exported from the US launch with AT&T. The syndicated pickup by the International Herald Tribune shows the story travelled well beyond gadget press — carrier lock-in is being treated as a mainstream business and regulatory question.
First-order effects
- French buyers get an iPhone they can activate on any network rather than only Orange's, though Apple has disclosed no price while the locked version sits at €399 — the premium will signal how much the exclusivity itself was worth.
Second-order effects
- Orange's rivals gain a legal template: if French law can force unlocking on one national deal, T-Mobile and O2 face pressure to offer equivalents in Germany and the UK, weakening the leverage Apple used to extract revenue-share terms.
Third-order effects
- If regulators across the EU follow France's lead, the operator-exclusive handset bundle — the financing engine of the European phone market — gives way to device sales decoupled from contracts, shifting bargaining power toward manufacturers and independent retailers.
The trend: European consumer law is prying apart the exclusive carrier-handset bundles that anchored Apple's international iPhone launches.