Gizmo freaks have reason to celebrate with Vodafone set to offer the Apple iPhone to its subscribers in India before 2008-end.
Vodafone has announced they have signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in as many as 10 countries where Vodafone have coverage.The telcom giant signed a deal with ten countries including India.The other countries include Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy,Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be later this year be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network.

Though Vodafone has confirmed that it will indeed be selling the iPhone in India, but hasn't mentioned when though.

The iPhone was first launched a year ago in the US with AT&T as an exclusive carrier. Its inaugural price was Rs 15,960 for 8GB and Rs 19,960 for 16GB with a two-year service agreement.But there is no indication of how much it will cost with Vodafone.However, a company official promised that the price would be "competitive". Vodafone will have to come up with a specific scheme in India to upgrade its existing customers to the iPhone as it is very likely that a vast majority of customers here will be from their existing prepaid customers spread across their 16 existing and 6 new circles.

The iPhone has been available in the grey market for some time now for Rs. 20,000 onwards depending on the model (4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB).