Wal-Mart to start selling iPhone Sunday
But it won't be selling a 4GB model, as some had speculated. The retail giant will offer the two existing models at a $2 savings.
This post was updated at 9:41 a.m. PST with more details from Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart on Friday confirmed that it will be selling Apple's iPhone 3G, beginning Sunday at about 2,500 stores. The price, with a new two-year service agreement with AT&T (or qualified upgrade), is $197 for the black 8GB model and $297 for the black or white 16GB version.
"We are delighted to bring customers this ground-breaking mobile technology," Gary Severson, Wal-Mart senior vice president of entertainment, said in a statement. "Our electronics associates have been preparing for many weeks for the arrival of iPhone 3G."
And some of them let the cat out of the bag a little early, as CNET News' Marguerite Reardon noted several weeks ago.
The popular smartphones are currently available at Apple retail stores, AT&T stores, and at Best Buy, where the 8GB phone is sold for $199 and 16GB phones are sold for $299.
Wal-Mart's iPhone offering amounts to two dollars in savings and negates, for now anyway, the rumored 4GB model that some had speculated Wal-Mart would sell for $99.
Wal-Mart will be staffing Apple iPhone 3G kiosks located in the Wal-Mart Connection Center in the store's home entertainment department.