France

Apple and Orange forced to end exclusive deal

Article published on the 2009-02-04 Latest update 2009-02-04 12:41 TU

Apple's iPhone.
(Photo: RFI/Daniel Finnan)

A French court has ruled that mobile phone network Orange must relinquish its exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in France.

The ruling in Paris, upholds a previous judgement by the French competition authority which suspended a five-year deal between Apple and Orange.

Apple which design and manufacture the smartphone, launched the device in November 2007 and has sold more than 600,000 units.

But rival networks Bouygues Telecom and SFR contested Orange’s exclusive iPhone deal which prevented them from offering consumers the technology on their networks.

Orange, who are owned by France Telecom has said they will appeal the decision. Meanwhile Bouygues Telecom and SFR said they hoped to offer the iPhone in their stores very soon.

The competition regulator explained that the deal risked introducing “rigidity in the sector which is already suffering from a lack of competition.”

In other countries across Europe, Apple has exclusive deals, such as O2 in Britain and T-Mobile in Germany, which limit the ability to use the phone on other networks.

There have been a number of documented cases of people unlocking the popular iPhone unofficially, to enable them to run the device on networks other that exclusive network in their own territory.