Mumbai: Vodafone and Apple announced that the highly anticipated iPhone 3G will be available in Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal on 11 July and in the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, India, South Africa and Turkey later this year.

iPhone 3G combines all the revolutionary features of iPhone with 3G networking that is twice as fast as the first generation iPhone, built-in GPS for expanded location based mobile services, and iPhone 2.0 software which includes support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and runs the hundreds of third party applications already built with the recently released iPhone SDK.

"We are very excited to bring iPhone 3G to many of our customers across Europe and emerging markets this summer," said Vodafone global CMO Frank H. Rövekamp. "Vodafone’s extensive, high speed and reliable networks mean customers can enjoy a great Internet and communications experience on their iPhone 3G."

"We’re excited to work with Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile telecommunications company, to bring iPhone 3G to 10 countries across the globe," said Apple COO Tim Cook.

ustralia, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal will be the first Vodafone markets to offer customers iPhone 3G for purchase on 11 July. iPhone 3G will be available via Vodafone on both prepay and contract price plans which will include great value data bundles.
 
Other markets will follow later this year and full details of specific launch dates and price plans will be made available soon by individual Vodafone operating companies. Customers in Vodafone’s 10 markets where iPhone 3G will be available can pre-register online and in retail stores in the next few days.