Apple has a problem with Russia where at the moment interested users cannot grab the iPhone from any carrier. Instead, Apple’s smartphone can only be bought unlocked from Svyaznoy, which is the Cupertino company’s key local distributor and which accounts for about the half of all iPhones sold in the country.
Just recently Russia’s third major carrier (Vimpelcom’s Beeline) has quit selling the iPhone, taking on the footsteps of MTS and Megafon. Apparently local carriers can’t meet Apple’s tough demands regarding marketing and subsidizing, so they decided to not sell the iPhone at all.
That, of course, doesn’t sound good for Tim Cook & Co, hence they decided to do something about it. Some of Apple’s top executives are now on the road “to meet with key distributors to revisit how it sells devices” in Russia.
With the launch of new models just around the corner, including the iPhone 5S and 5C, Apple wants to return to the Russian market, big time. And it seems this is just a matter of reaching a mutual ground with the carriers… Which sounds feasible… though you never know. We’ll see where this goes…
[Via: TUAW, TechCrunch]