Germany and Britain will simultaneously launch the touch-screen iPhone in Europe on November 9, offering Internet access, telephone service and iPod-like music as well as the ability to play videos.

Under an agreement announced on Tuesday, the phone is to be distributed in Britain by O2.

Press reports said that the choice of T-Mobile was the result of concessions agreed to by parent group Deutsche Telekom, which would reportedly pay Apple up to 30 percent of sales connected to the iPhone.

That would represent a first in the European mobile market, and highlighted the commercial significance of the deal for Deutsche Telekom, a former monopoly which is placing its fortunes in services aimed at a younger market.

O2 was said to have agreed to a figure of 40 percent, reports added.

When pressed on the question, Rene Obermann said only: "We don't comment on the details of our contracts as a rule, and will not make an exception this time."

T-Mobile boss Hamid Akhavan acknowledged the possibility that his company might get the rights to distribute the iPhone in neighboring countries, but stressed that "for the moment we are only speaking about Germany."

The Financial Times Deutschland reported that other countries might include Austria, Croatia, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Apple boss Steve Jobs came to Berlin for the long-awaited announcement, appearing as usual in jeans in front of a packed audience along with Deutsche Telekom boss Obermann, who sported a tie in the operator's trademark pink.

Once the throng of German media had been warmed up with sausages and the latest hits by Coldplay, Katie Melua and Mika, reporters rushed to tables where English-speaking Apple representatives clad in black showed off the phones.

Jobs stressed that Apple had already sold a million iPhones since it was launched in the United States a little more than two months ago, in part because the phone's price in the US was cut earlier this month to 399 dollars from 599 initially.

The phone in Germany is to cost 399 euros (557 dollars) in addition to a subscription, considerably more than in the United States.

Obermann told media his group was the logical choice for a German launch.

"Germany is the biggest European market and we are the biggest operator with 30 million customers," Obermann said.

He hailed the deal, saying that "the iPhone is a product that offers very innovative services" that should help dust off the former telecom monopoly's image.

Deutsche Telekom, which has lost two million fixed line customers, is also now pushing a "triple play" offer of telephone, Internet and TV access via a new high-speed fibre optic network in the country's major cities.

It announced on Monday the acquisitions of US mobile operator SunCom Wireless for 1.72 billion euros, and the Internet consumer site Scout 24 for another 357 million.

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