iPhone 3G was released in India on 22 August . India is one of the biggest market of mobile phones and the country with largest growing mobile market . Smartphones are popular in India . Although no 3G , Video calling services are available ,people are buying 3G and Video phones . Without 3G  service available in India we can remove 3G part from iPhone 3G . So basically in India iPhone 3G and old iPhone with 2.0 firmware have not much difference . Whats noticeable from the Apple’s perspective is iPhone 3G is fail in India. Below is the excerpts from an Indian newspaper

A week after Apple began selling iPhone in India, experts believe that the iconic phone is ready to become cheaper by more than 15 per cent to boost sales in the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market.

Globally the 3G iPhone has sold over a million units, but the sales in India are believed to have crossed just 5,000 pieces. The picture remains unclear since Vodafone and Airtel have fallen silent after the high-decibel launch.

Apple may drop iPhone’s price by at least Rs 5,000, says Anshul Gupta, principal analyst with Gartner. At current prices, we expect iPhone to sell primarily among those who cannot wait for Apple or the operators to cut prices, he said. It will be a volumes game then for the operators to clear out their stocks before Apple announces a new version of iPhone.

The 3G, or third generation, iPhone sells for more than triple its US price tag in India. The eight-gigabyte model of the phone, which includes a built-in iPod and a desktop-class web browser, sells for Rs 31,000, while the 16GB version goes for Rs 36,100. Amid the confetti and cheerleaders at its launch on August 22, the price was perceived to be a discordant note.

There are an estimated 30,000 users of iPhone (first generation devices) in India, and the operators are hoping to get past this number with iPhone 3G. However, the price tag has limited Apple to an extremely small portion of the 260 million mobile subscribers in India. Airtel and Vodafone can between them theoretically carry iPhone to almost 105.2 million subscribers. However, iPhone falls in the smart phone category, whose market is estimated at 10 million by 2010.

Analysts feel that both the operators are hoping to strike a stronger relation with their customers, by offering exclusive data plans. The industry’s average revenue per user (ARPU) has been on a decline each quarter. As service providers penetrate deeper into the country, getting new customers who don’t spend more than $8-10 a month on their phone bills, they will rely on devices like iPhone to cushion their ARPUs in the urban areas,says Girish Trivedi, deputy director (ICT Practice), Frost & Sullivan.