SingTel to sell iPhone in Asia; confirms Apple's shift in strategy

SingTel has announced that it will sell Apple's iPhone in Singapore, and through their subsidiaries in other parts of Asia.

This is in addition to Mexico-based America Movil announcement last week that they will "bring the iPhone to its Latin American operations later this year" and Vodafone's and Telecom Italia's announcement.

So what does today's announcement mean? Find out after the jump and also checkout the iPhone world map updated to include the latest developments.

Just like last week's announcement, SingTel has not given any details on the pricing or the exact launch date of the iPhone in Asia.

Here is the list of countries where Apple's iPhone will be launched soon:

SingTel has announced that it will sell Apple's iPhone in Singapore, and through their subsidiaries in other parts of Asia i.e. Bharti Airtel in India, Globe Telecom in the Philippines, and Optus in Australia.

I had reported last week that Vodafone will be selling the iPhone in the following countries: Australia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa, Turkey.

Telecom Italia also made an announcement last week that they too will sell the iPhone in Italy.

There was no surprise when Movil, the largest cell phone operator in Latin America, said last week that it will sell iPhone across its Latin American operations from this year. This means Apple's iPhone will be available in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay.

If it was not for Joe's comment below I would have forgotten to mention that Ted Rogers, CEO of Rogers, the only wireless carrier in Canada with a compatible GSM network, in a short statement late last month had said "We're thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year", though he forgot to mention finally as Joe rightfully pointed out.

So what does this mean?

With SingTel planning to sell the iPhone in Australia and India along with Vodafone, just like Telecom Italia in Italy it is now confirmed that Apple has changed strategy of having having two (or maybe more), rather than only one exclusive carrier partner in each market.

That would take the count of the number of countries to 36 where the most hyped gadget ever created aka the Apple iPhone will be available.

All these announcements has also resulted in analysts increasing their estimates on how many iPhones Apple will sell. They are now estimating that Apple will sell 11 million iPhones this year from previous estimates of 7 million and 17 million in 2009, up from his previous estimate of 10 million by using the simple logic that Apple's new distribution deals, almost triples the roughly 150 million subscribers it has access to now through existing carrier partners to about 470 million wireless subscribers.

Also after last weeks breaking news where the pre-release iPhone firmware 2.0 confirmed that 3G iPhone is coming soon, it is quite safe to assume that folks in these countries will get to buy the new 3G iPhone.

Check out the really cool CdnPhoto’s map of the iPhone world below in which countries where the iPhone is now available, or will be available soon based on recent announcements, are marked in red:

Any predictions on when the whole world map will be painted red?

[via Sillicon Alley Insider, image courtesy Fortune's Tech blog]

 

 

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