Price of handsets - IE vs UK

You are missing the huge savings that can be made by buying your phone outright and going for the minimum cost monthly contract that meets your requirements. The subsidized handsets are a scam designed to trick customers into buying expensive phones and ripping them off with higher monthly rates. The best monthly SIM-free tariff is probably Eir Mobile €9.99per month unlimited 5G. (in-bundle rate). You can assume that Eir are still making a profit while offering unlimited usage for €9.99pm. If Vodafone are charging you €76pm, they only need €10pm or less to cover their network costs. The additional €66pm profit will give them €2,134 over 2 years just for the handset - probably about twice the wholesale cost of the handset to them. And most customers won't bother re-negotiating their contract after 2 years, so they will cream further profits! The business model in UK is much the same, but perhaps Irish customers are slightly more astute than British customers, and the popularity of cheap SIM-only plans here here have encouraged a greater proportion of customers to ditch subsidized handsets for Sim-only plans.