When cellular service providers subsidize the cost of a phone, they know they will earn that money elsewhere. For this, they hook you onto a contract for an extended period of time. They generally tend to make a lot more than what they’re losing in the subsidy.

This cannot happen in India. Service providers don’t charge for receiving calls. They don’t charge us for receiving text messages. I talk a lot on the phone because I dislike Facebook. I pay about Rs.4992 a year and every month I get 1000 minutes of talk time within my home cellular network, 200 minutes to call outside the home network and 340 text messages. That is the amount the owner of an AT&T subsidized iPhone-owner pays every month. They charge this much for cellular service with internet access even for non-iPhone devices. And they charge you whenever you receive texts or calls. They make enough money to cover up the subsidy costs along with the usual hefty profits. In India it’s a game of numbers. They’re interested in getting into more hands, faster. Profits on each subscription can never be close to being as high.

The media gets the India iPhone launch wrong every time. They ask Apple the wrong questions. Instead of asking them why iPhones aren’t unlocked, they ask them why it doesn’t cost $200. When they charge the consumer the actual price of the phone, the consumer shouldn’t be tied to one carrier for two years.

Interestingly though, Motorola and HTC never seem to get any bad press about the lack of carrier subsidies on phones they sell. And no, it’s not because they’re unlocked. That has never been a first question in their minds. No matter how much better an iPhone is in terms of overall experience, it should cost the consumer no more than the equivalent of $200 across the globe. It’s good that the media didn’t see carriers in other countries (like England) offering the iPhone for free on contract. If that had happened, there’d be a bunch of people running around burning posters of Steve Jobs for not distributing free iPhones.

Apple doesn’t care about any country’s per capita income when it prices its products. It doesn’t dive into countries to create country-specific products. They take into account the duties and other taxes that need to be paid to price their products accordingly. So you’re never going to be promised an iPhone for what you have in your wallet. Unless it’s $649 + taxes. But what you might get instead is an unlocked phone. If you press them hard enough.