On Friday, Orange announced that later this year, it will bring the iPhone in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean. Several countries were mentioned including Austria, Belgium, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland.

Bertrand Deronchaine, France Telecom spokesman, said that through this deal, Orange becomes the exclusive iPhone distributor for Romania and Belgium.

The iPhone has been great business so far, as Apple became the third largest smart phone supplier of the world. The American company has reached this stage despite the fact that it launched the iPhone on the market not that long ago and in four countries only. It seems that now the smartphone is ready to go global.

On Monday, four major companies in the Asia-Pacific area announced that they would start distributing the iPhone. SingTel will bring the device in Singapore, Bharti Airtel Ltd. will take on India, Optus will cover Australia and Globe Telecom Inc. will sell the iPhone in the Philippines.

China Mobile stated last month that once Apple comes up with a proper business model, the company will be brought aboard for officially launching the device on the Chinese market. However, no release date has been announced. As there are hundreds of thousands of illegal iPhones currently being used in China, there is that very serious financial issue to be addressed as quickly as possible; something will surely be done. In order to better understand the potential of China Mobile, one should know that the company has about 384 million customers, which is more than the population of the U.S.