France's Orange may be next cut iPhone price, eat losses - reports

Published: 10:00 AM EST

Apple is in talks with its exclusive French wireless carrier, Orange, to lower the price of the iPhone in France following disappointing sales, Les Echos is reporting.

The newspaper said Apple is urging the carrier to adopt a subsidized pricing model after selling only 100,000 of the touch-screen handsets during the first four months -- a run rate just north of 825 units per day.

Although Orange's parent firm France Telecom reportedly denied that it would cut pricing, Apple's two other European wireless partners were recently compelled to instate significant cuts on their own iPhone offerings.

In a move allegedly aimed at clearing inventory of the current generation handsets ahead of 3G models, O2 this month dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone in the UK to 169 pounds from 269 pounds, while Germany's T-Mobile slashed the same model by 300 euros to 99 euros.