Telkomsel is celebrating its 14th anniversary this month and they are launching a new promotion for the Apple iPhone, cutting the price of the handset by 1 million rupiah. The 8GB model will sell for around 3 million and the 16GB for 4 million, with a 12-month contract.

I just bought an unlocked Nokia E63 here for 3 million. I would have loved to have an iPhone, but I would expect the 12-month contract you have to sign up for, would not be a cheap proposition. The iPhone originally went on sale here for around 10 million, without out a contract.

I think most people here in Indonesia just buy the handset and then a SIM card and top up their phone whenever they need it. I don’t make a lot of calls, so it suits me well and the price of sending local SMS messages is very cheap.

I haven’t seen any sales figures, but the Blackberry seems to be popular here as well as Nokia’s range of phones. I haven’t met anyone with an iPhone yet and haven’t seen much marketing of the phone here in Medan.