Indians can finally get their hands on a legal, non-grey market Apple iPhone.

Come Diwali time, the iPhone is scheduled to be rolled out from Vodafone, who have acquired the rights to sell the iPhone in India. Incidentally, Vodafone also plan to launch it in Australia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa and Turkey.

Apple has yet to confirm the selling price of the iPhone in India and whether this arrangement with Vodafone is an exclusive one. The iPhone has been available in the Indian grey market for some time now, with unlocked handsets being sold for anywhere from Rs.26,000 to Rs.32,000, depending on the model plus when and where you buy it from. The only catch is that if you happen to run an Apple software update on a grey market iPhone, it is likely to mess up things big time, rendering it unusable and turning it into an “iBrick” !! :)

Update: It seems there will indeed be another Indian operator as well, in the form of Bharti Airtel. This is not all that surprising, given than Apple also has similar non-exclusive agreements with vendors in other countries like Italy.

 

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