Appletell

It looks like the grey market for the iPhone is getting widespread as observed by a study of cellphone advertiser Admob. Admob noticed that the iPhone has managed to move up to the top 20 devices which received quite a number of ad request to Admob. The company has also managed to serve most of these requests coming from Germany and the US, where the iPhone was already released officially. Interestingly though, Admob has noted that many of the requests it received are coming from other countries where the iPhone was not yet officially available. These countries include Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the Netherlands and especially Hong Kong which ranked high in terms of iPhone advertising.

Hence, it is but logical that the iPhones were indeed being marketed in the gray markets of those countries. And if there’s anything that these data show, is the fact that those iPhone units are being exported by individuals “illegally” from either the U.S. or Germany.

Nonetheless, it is not to say that iPhone is not aware about this. This might even be one of the driving factor as to why Apple has been aggresively coordinating with telcom carriers internationally to distribute the iPhone worldwide. Interestingly again, the two countries which have widespread “unofficial” availability of the iPhone, have not even started negotiating with Apple regarding the official distribution of the iPhone in their respective countries. These are China and Russia, which both have large shares in the gray market for iPhones.

Via [MacNN] Via [AdMob]