The more, the merrier; but my understanding is that the iPhone has never been much of a block buster in India.

Yes, but that's because it's ridiculously overpriced there, with carriers charging something like $600 for the handset with a contract. (And, lack of 3G outside of the large metros, which Samsung is able to capitalize on with their lower-end phones). People would buy unlocked phones in NYC to take back to India to use.

 

Since Apple is now planning to distribute it directly, and I hope at the price for an unlocked iPhone that you can get in countries such as the US, I predict it will fly off the shelves. Apple is a huge status symbol in India.

Why launch somewhere else when ppl have to wait a month in markets it allegedly launched ? Create even more backorders ? Ppl in my local Apple retailer laugh at me when i ask them of availability

 

You should never underestimate the number of wealthy people in India who can easily afford iPhones, in a sea of over a billion there are tens of millions of them.

Yeah, that's sort of what I was meaning. It hasn't really been a "huge" hit, given the potential market.

Here's hoping the iP5 changes that.

The reason for being overpriced has nothing to do with Apple, but 30% tax added by Indian government on goods that are defined as luxury.  The price may decrease a little, but not a lot. The iPhone 5 black market is very strong with people paying 1.5-2 times the price, just to get their hands on the latest iPhone. As for 3G service, it depends on the area, since I went to Udaipur for a meeting and obtained excellent service, but was in Delhi (capital city) and it was lousy. 

Unless this is new, no one in India will usually take a  contract option and 99% of people will buy the unlocked phone and choose their own provider and plan.

 

I expect the following pricing (just my opinion):

16Gb: USD 770

32Gb: USD$900

64Gb:USD$1100

30% tax is wrong, it is just 5%.

 

The main reason for the high cost is the multiple distribution layers that apple has to go thru to get their products to the end users i.e. distributors, transporters, retail etc.. Apple cannot as of now sell directly to the customers as it is not an Indian company and to be able to do that 30% of the products sold should be sourced from Indian suppliers. I did read that Apple is in some kind of discussion with the Indian Government where in they might request the software outsourcing in lieu of the  30% products sourcing from Indian suppliers, and they were rumors that the Indian government might relax these rules for single brand retail outlets.

 

I really don't know how People buying the iPhone 5 in India in the black market at insane prices will be able to use the handsets, as none of the Mobile operators in India are issuing nano Sims and according to the info I could gather the nano Sims are not compatible with the older Sims, so even if you can manage to cut the older Sims to the size of the nano Sim one cannot use it, as the connectors on the nano Sim are totally different to the older Sims and the nano Sim is thinner too, so how are people going to insert the older Sims into the iPhone 5.

After picking up the ipad2 and the 4S I am looking forward to the new iPod touch, hopefully they will launch it at the same time as the iPhone

 

The iPhones bought in India are not locked as handsets are not subsidized the user can choose any tariff plan other than the ones prescribed by the carrier. And the warranty on the iPhone can be claimed only in the country from where it has been bought. If some one buys a iPhone in US he cannot claim warranty in India as iPhones don't carry international warranty.

The main reason being no carrier deals for subsidizing the handsets, but you can find lot of people using handsets got from US which are locked and they jail break it to use it here. and for some reason there are a bunch of people paying quite a sum to buy a locked handset, awareness about locked and unlocked handsets is at best minimal as none of the carriers here in India follow that route like in other countries.

Same here in The Netherlands. The release schedule is quite a joke: the telco's here only got the 16GB model. Not on launch day, nee, the 28th was merely a pre order date. Slowly the telco's are getting the phones in, and some even get the 32 and 64GB models. But the Apple Store (.nl) still shows 3-4 weeks. My expected delivery date is Oct 25-31. Same with the other 21 countries that were supposed to get it 'released' on the 28th of Sep.

I'd really wish for Apple to first have the manufacturers create more models, CDMA/GSM, white/black, 16/32/64GB, stock em high, ship 'em when needed and create a truly global launch date instead of this 'the new iPhone is so much in demand Apple simply cannot keep up' weather it's intended or not kinda marketing.

Next year I'm going to either get the new iPad or iPhone in the States on launch day by standing in line myself or just skip the first 2 months of hype and order online after production has created my favorite Apple Store line: 'Next business day shipping available'