This is the week of the geeks, as the Apple iPhone finally was officially launched in India amidst fanfare. Both the official operators for the phone Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar launched the phone at midnight across eight cities.

But the launch was a far cry from that witnessed in international markets where iPhone lovers had queued up the whole night to buy the handset. Only 35-40 people had lined up to buy the coveted smartphone at midnight.

The iPhone is available for Rs 31,000 for the 8 GB version and Rs 36,100 for the 16 GB version. The 16GB phone will be available in 2 colours - Black and White. The phone with fast 3G wireless technology has maps with GPS, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new Application Store, it combines three products in one, a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML mail and full web browsing.

Over 200,000 users had pre-registered with Airtel for the iPhone before the launch. The phone had a star studded launch with Vodafone Essar in Jaipur having Maharaja of Jaipur, Bhawani Singh as its first customer, football captain Baichung Bhutia the first customer in Kolkata and in Delhi, Nishant Arya, owner of automotive component JBM Group being first in New Delhi. Kannada actor Puneet Rajkumar launched the iPhone for airtel in Karnataka.

Despite the hoopla the purchase of iPhone was limited, the reason behind this could be non availability of 3G network in India and the high prices of the phones which are much higher than international market. The iPhone is also available in the grey market at cheaper rates. Analysts estimates that iPhone may sell about 100,000-200,000 units in India this year.

Source: myiris

Please check the comparison of iphone price globally. (click here)