In what is being seen as an attempt by Vodafone Germany to derail T-Mobile's pre-Christmas iPhone sales strategy has now hit the buffers. A Hamburg court has ruled that T-Mobile can now market the phone exclusively to its customers, going against Vodafone's earlier court success that ruled for the handset to be unlocked.
A spokesman for Vodafone said: "The intention of the legal action was to ensure clarity on the commercial position in the German marketplace. We have not received the written ruling, but we will be examining it closely to decide on any future actions. We do not believe the pricing model is in the best interests of the German consumer."
In France, where Orange is the official supplier of the Apple mobile phone, during the first five days the iPhone was available over 30,000 are said to have been sold. However, around 20 percent of these are reported to have been unlocked, although Orange says that nearly 50 percent of the people buying the phones were new customers for the network, roughly the same percentage AT&T in the US has reported.
For more on this story read: The Times and PocketLint