Here in the UK, as in much of Europe, prepaid mobile tariffs are very much more popular than in the US. You can buy pretty much any handset sim-free, or slightly subsidised as a prepaid handset locked to a network. Any of our five networks (plus several tenant networks) will offer any of their monthly tariffs at a heavily discounted rate if you don't take a subsidised handset.<p>An iPhone 4 costs £500 ($800) as a prepaid handset.
Capable Android handsets from the likes of ZTE and Huawei can be bought for less than £100. A mid-range Samsung or HTC handset can be had on an 18-month contract at half the cost of an iPhone.<p>By global standards, the US market is profoundly weird. There's an effective duopoly, the market accepts carrier lock-in and very high monthly charges, the market still hasn't standardised on GSM and all manner of other things largely unique to the US. American customers are uniquely price insensitive because the market has contrived to conceal the actual cost of both hardware and services through bundling.<p>Apple <i>might</i> secure a solid market in the US and I'm sure that will be highly lucrative, but for the other 4.6 billion mobile phone users, I think the Microsoft vs Apple analogy is very apt indeed.