” About 80% of the phones were sold for 399 euros on a special Orange tariff plan, with 15% sold for 549 euros on a regular Orange tariff plan.

The rest were sold for 649 euros. For 100 euros extra, these can be unlocked. ”

So , about 28500 French customers bought a locked phone and tariff paln and about 1500 bought an unlocked phone .. the only news here is that Apple and their selected carriers are raking in the money ..

Regardless, I think Apple well knows that people want to buy it unlocked, but it plans to take advantage of its popularity for all its worth – namely, helping a carrier partner acquire new subscribers in exchange for a share of revenue and more importantly, other concessions (in activation, service, branding, unlimited data plan at a reasonable price, etc). The goal of Apple is to change carrier industry practices and open it up to the whole Web, not just a few extra dollars. Eventually when 3G or 4G arrives and the carriers are able to handle greater amounts of data traffic, I believe Apple will trade their share of revenue for other concessions – such as iChat and iTunes use. Leaving those who use it unlocked on other networks still blocked from use of these applications.

80% of the iphones sold in France were sold with a “iphone specific” contract.

The remaining 15% of the iphones were sold with an ordinary normal Orange contract.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/05/AR2007120500914.html