The handsets will be sold through the operator's customer service outlets, the New Delhi-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. Bharti didn't provide pricing details.
Bharti is trying to offer the iPhone before Vodafone Group Plc as Apple chose the two providers to tap the world's second- largest wireless market. Still, sales in India may lag behind other nations as India has yet to start third-generation networks needed to support speedier browsing and downloads.
``The extreme business user may not migrate from a Blackberry to the iPhone,'' said Soham Raninga, an associate editor with PC World magazine and head of the publication's product-testing lab in Bangalore.
India, which this year will auction licenses and spectrum for 3G services, added more wireless users in June than China, the only larger market by total number of subscribers. Apple's iPhone will compete with handsets from Nokia Oyj and HTC Corp. for an increasing number of business-phone users in India, who also want to take video, music and pictures.