{"id":82445,"date":"2013-07-18T03:18:07","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T01:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=82445"},"modified":"2013-07-18T10:11:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T08:11:20","slug":"russian-mobile-operators-ditch-apple-iphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/82445-russian-mobile-operators-ditch-apple-iphone.html","title":{"rendered":"Russian mobile operators ditch Apple iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vimpelcom<\/a>, one of Russia’s top mobile operators, will no longer sell Apple Inc<\/a>‘s iPhone<\/a>, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, after similar moves by other mobile companies in Russia.<\/p>\n

Vimpelcom ended negotiations with Apple over iPhone sales this month as the U.S. company would not soften its contract terms, the paper said, citing a person close to the operator.<\/p>\n

The Financial Times also reported that Russian operators MTS and Megafon<\/a> have halted iPhone sales.<\/p>\n

A representative for MTS told Reuters that the company’s contract to sell iPhones ended in September 2012, so it did not purchase the latest model, the iPhone 5<\/a>. But it did continue to sell older models of iPhones in stock.<\/p>\n

MTS is actively pushing sales of Apple’s tablet computer the iPad, as it sees a huge potential for such products in Russia, the representative said.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Megafon said on Wednesday that it has not sold iPhones since 2009.<\/p>\n

Vimpelcom and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The operators were hurt by the fact that Russia does not allow subsidies for handsets, making the phones too expensive for the average customer, the paper reported.<\/p>\n

Apple, which has a 4.5 percent share of the Russian smartphone market, can still sell in Russia through its own resale stores and other mobile phone retailers, the Financial Times reported.<\/p>\n

(Reporting By Megan Davies; Editing by David Gregorio)<\/p>\n

More Apple news<\/h3>\n

iPhone 5 electrocution death investigated: Apple<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Apple vs Samsung vs BlackBerry vs Nokia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Apple working on cheaper iPhones, bigger screens, multiple colours: sources<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia’s top mobile operators will no longer sell Apple’s iPhone due to a dispute over contract terms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340871,"featured_media":72752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[36,605,1125],"class_list":["post-82445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-active","tag-apple","tag-iphone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82447,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82445\/revisions\/82447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}