Ukraine will start enjoying its first official iPhones on June 26. Customers will be able to purchase the latest 5S and 5C models as well as older ones, while globally those models went on sale in September of 2013.
The phones will by offered by various resellers – like Comfy, Foxtrot and
iLand. Apple decided not to provide an exclusive right to any of the Ukrainian
dealers to start the sales earlier than others.
Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile phone operator
with around 25 million subscribers according to data from Iks Consulting, has
also reached an agreement with what once was a small garage startup launched by
college dropout Steve Jobs.
Kyivstar’s new chief executive officer Petro
Chernyshov is due to begin his
tenure on June 25, the eve of the sales launch. The company, owned by Russia’s
Vimpelcom, reported $758.2 million of pre-tax income in 2013, though
Vimpelcom had to write off $2.9 billion of its Canadian and Ukrainian assets
value due to a complicated economic situation – thus Kyivstar is looking for opportunities to boost its revenue.
“However, until 3G and 4G connections are introduced, the telecoms services
industry in Ukraine will not develop,” said Kyivstar’s spokesperson Mykhaylo
Shuranov.
Unofficial iPhones – ones that are actually
Apple-made, but are not covered by the company’s guarantee service – usually enter the Ukrainian market shortly after being presented in Cupertino, Apple’s headquarters
in California, despite the fact that there’s no official iStore in Ukraine. Worth noting is that all of Apple’s hardware is being assembled in China.
Moreover, unofficial iPhones remain substantially cheaper. For
instance, one may purchase the 16 Gb iPhone 5S for some $650 at Maclove, a Kyiv-based
reseller of Apple products that currently does not hold the status of the high-tech
giant’s official partner in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Foxtrot – one of the retailers
that will start offering iPhones on June 26 officially – is going to charge as
much as $970 for the same device.
The price for the cheapest smartphones on the local
market does not exceed $60, so iPhones are seen as luxurious devices.
The main difference in having an iPhone purchased from an official reseller is
that it’s easier to exchange it for a new one if it turns out to have major
problems, while unofficial local resellers will try to fix it, even if it
demands some serious effort. Unofficial iPhones are usually sold with a free 1-month safeguard guarantee and a longer one is offered for an additional payment.
While Ukraine prepares for its first official iPhones 5S, the whole world is
about to meet iPhone 6. Worldwide release of the hotly-anticipated 6th model is
slated for this autumn, with the first two models expected to be introduced in
September, according to various online reports.
Kyiv Post staff writer Matthew
Luxmoore can be reached at [email protected].
