AfterDawn: News

Best Buy to sell Apple iPhone 3G

Best Buy is set to become the first independent iPhone retailer, today announcing the availability of the phone in 970 of its brick and mortar stores. The move is the first time the phone has been available outside of Apple's or AT&T's retail stores.

"We had a lot of work to do, obviously, to get in a position where Apple and AT&T would feel good about Best Buy Mobile carrying it, and that's what we've done in the last 18 months," said Shawn Score, president of Best Buy Mobile.



Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris added that because of the company's good standing relationship (the retailer sells Macs and iPods as well), Best Buy can now sell the iPhone as well.

Just last week Best Buy announced that it had finished its conversion of in-store cell phone departments to the "Best Buy Mobile" brand. Computers were upgraded to handle cell-phone activation and employees received 250,000 hours of extra training.

Score added that the Best Buy Mobile brand was a joint venture with CarPhone Warehouse Group, which is Europe's largest cell-phone retailer.

The 970 new stores with iPhone availability are in addition to the 2,050 AT&T stores and Apple's 190 stores.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 Aug 2008 23:13

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• 6 comments

• Blackjax

  Good for them but I still ain't buying it. Too darn expensive for what is still basically a cell phone on roids.

  13.8.2008 00:00 #1

• susieqbbb

  booo!!!
  
  To expensive indeed i am not going to fork out 135.00 per month for a single phone when i can get two phones for the same price from t-mobile or verizon

  13.8.2008 00:13 #2

• OneMember

  Is this phone anymore?
  
  I got pc and cellphone so I see no need to pay huge amount of money for that toy.

  13.8.2008 06:00 #3

• Hyasuma

  I'll just stick with my 1st gen iphone, the new one is cheap crap

  13.8.2008 09:01 #4

• 7thsinger

  My cell is still primarily just that. It has a camera, but that's it.
  
  I still appreciate simplicity (and it's lower cost) sometimes.

  13.8.2008 11:15 #5

• narmo

  is this just in the USA or Best Buys in Canada too? it doesn't mention it in the article

  13.8.2008 11:41 #6