London: Mobile phone group Vodafone has scored its first deal to sell Apple's iPhone in 10 countries including India.

Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone company by revenue, has been competing with operators and retailers to secure the right to sell the iPhone, the touch-screen device which combines Apple's popular iPod music player, a video player and Web browser.

As per latest reports, Vodafone will begin selling the Apple iPhone as early as later this year. Earlier, a leading business daily had quoted unnamed sources at Apple retail saying that the iPhone is expected to launch in India in the first week of September 2008. The report had said that initially only the 8GB version would be launched for somewhere around Rs 28,000 with the 16GB version expected to follow suit later.

"Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network," the British based firm said in a statement without giving any more details.