Hi i am karthick from india.. If i buy iphone 5 in apple wbsite (www.apple.com). can i unlock it permanent ???, Hi i am karthick from india.. If i buy iphone 5 in apple wbsite (www.apple.com). can i unlock it permanent ???

You cannot buy from Apple.com unless you live in The US

Buy in your home country

Apple doesnt sell its product online in India.

But you can always buy from sites like flipkart and amazon.

Be careful if buying from ebay because many sellers are selling imported phones meant for US or UK markets since you won't get warranty on any of these phones, however a phone from flipkart or amazon would come with a 1 year warranty.

Not quite... They may still have a warranty on them, but you won't get a full year. Amazon and flipkart are NOT authorized distributors of the iPhone. At best, you'll get a used phone. More than likely, you'll get a phone that was hacked to unlock it and is unsupportable (not to mention having no warranty at all as the hack voids the warranty). If you do get lucky enough to get a phone that is not hacked and has most of the warranty remaining, you most likely won't be able to get it serviced in India because it would probably have come from elsewhere.

Just buy a phone in India from an authorized source.

In india Apple doesn't sell the phones directly. They are legally imported by "Redington" and further sold to end user through reliane stors or websites like flipkart and Amazon or given to operators. All legally imported phones come with an extra sticker which says Manufatured by Apple and imported by Redington. Flipkart is the ost reputed site of our country and i can assure you that any Apple product bought from flipkart would carry Apple warranty in India. I understand your way of thinking but in India, Apple doesn't have any authorized source other than redington who is selling through these websites or through stores like Croma like you have bestbuy or futureshop.

And all authorised people who sell phones with Indian warranty are called apple resellers here.

Just buy the iPhone 5 in your home country.

Removed: posted inaccurate information.

That was when the iphone 4 was launched and this have changed since then.

However, last year, Apple changed its business model and adapted to the Indian market by tying up with distribution companies Ingram Micro and Redington India—moving away from its initial practice of solely selling phones through carriers such as Airtel and Vodafone.

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/apples-india-gamble-pays-off/article49 48812.ece

http://www.bgr.in/news/apple-distributor-redington-runs-out-of-iphone-4-stocks/

These are just 2 random results on googling "Redington importing iphones in India"

Yes, thank you, I corrected my statement before you posted. Anyone wishing to purchase an iPhone in India should confirm that the reseller they are thinking of purchasing from is indeed authorized:

https://locate.apple.com/in/en/

Not all Apple resellers are authorized to sell the iPhone, and some resellers will flat out lie about it. Amazon is certainly not; they're not authorized even in the US. And they don't sell the iPhone themselves; only their affiliates do and it's highly unlikely that any of those will be authorized.

Regards.

Yes, I realised only after posting.

The best way to check whether the phone would be serviced in India or not is to look for a hologram and the sticker which mentions whether the phone was imported by reddington or micro ingram.

If you want to double check then one can also call up the Apple store here and give the IMEI no on the box and they let you know if the phone is enlisted in the legally imported phones list or not.

And it is true that some sellers do bluff. But the only right way to go about it is confirming from an Apple store itself before making the payment. 🙂