Will Best Buy be carrying the iPhone 3G in Canada?

So far there is one standalone Best Buy Mobile store in Canada. More are on the way. In the States, Best Buy Mobile is a glorified name for the cell phone section. They have been selling it in the States now for a few weeks. I haven’t been to a Best Buy store lately so I don’t know if there are “Best Buy Mobile” signs up in the store.

With the iPhone plans changing on October 1st it makes it easier to sell the iPhone 3G outside of the realm of Rogers and Fido. The new plans are straightforward with little options. There is no point in choosing one plan and adding a separate data package to it. The data packages change October 1st and well so there would be no point to pick one plan and add one of the data packages because the data packages aren’t that good. Unless you have some great plan you don’t want to give up, but then you will probably be dealing directly with Rogers or Fido anyway. I guess you could still go without a data plan as well. With little options to choose from, it makes it easier for a general salesman to sell.

Here’s what I think. I already have an iPhone so I don’t care if Best Buy sells it or not. If Best Buy sells it, does that mean Future Shop will too? I think they should both start carrying a wider range of accessories. Right now it is pretty easy to get an iPhone. There are tons of Rogers and Fido stores all around and then there is the order by phone or internet. Access to them isn’t the problem, at least not anymore. Having Best Buy sell them won’t initiate a second rush of sales.

I see people who are not totally familiar with the iPhone 3G seeing it at Best Buy and gaining interest in it. Not everyone keeps up with the latest gadget and mobile news on the internet everyday. Also, most people don’t go browsing in Rogers and Fido stores when they are at the mall. This means that there could be some people out there who haven’t even heard of the iPhone 3G yet. There are probably some of these people, but not a lot.

What could possibly happen (but likely won’t) would be that Best Buy could cut the price on it. Future Shop cut the price of the N95 to $99 or something like that when it was $200 or so everywhere else. They are a big company and could probably offer some other incentives if you buy from them. There could be a positive side to them selling it. I still see it being unlikely that they offering anything like this however because of the tight restrictions of the 3G so far.

Reported by eHphone.ca