Vodafone joins list of iPhone stockists

Mobile phone network Vodafone is stocking the iPhone from today (January 14th).

Vodafone joins O2, Orange and Tesco as official suppliers of the state-of-the-art handset which has led the smartphone revolution of the UK mobile industry.

The iPhone will be available both online and in Vodafone stores – and it could be of particular interest to existing Vodafone customers who may have been waiting for the chance to upgrade to the Apple device.

Although the pricing structure selected by Vodafone is similar to those set by O2, Orange and Tesco, it has offered some incentives to customers with no affiliation to a network.

It will, for example, allow users to consume one gigabyte of 3G data.

However, there are drawbacks for the firm, says the Telegraph, noting that Vodafone covers just 81 per cent of the UK, compared with Orange’s 93 per cent.

O2 arguably sits between the two, covering a reasonable 84 per cent of the country, but suffering considerable problems with its network at the back end of 2009.

It has, though, spent £30 million recently on significant upgrades which it hopes will re-establish its position as Britain’s leading smartphone retailer.

The newspaper suggests: “The reliability of mobile data networks will be a major issue this year, not least because Google has now unleashed the Nexus One, the first significant challenger to the iPhone in terms of power and functionality.”

Vodafone announced in December that it was to stock the iPhone, saying that it would be available for as little as £30 a month on a 24-month contract.

UPDATE: You can find out how the Vodafone iPhone deals compare against Orange and O2 by looking on Recombu.