NEW DELHI, Aug 21, 2008 (AFP) - Apple's iconic iPhone was slated to make its debut Friday in India, home to the world's fastest-growing mobile market, officials said.

India's leading mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, and rival Essar Vodafone, will sell the phone for 31,000 rupees (S$998) for the eight-gigabyte memory model, and 36,100 (S$1162) for the 16 GB version.

"We believe this iPhone fever we've seen globally will catch on in India," said Sanjay Kapoor, Airtel mobile services president.

The company was targeting the "high-end achiever segment" and the big-spending "funster youth segment," Kapoor told reporters.

The price is far higher than the US$199 dollars paid by US customers to the telecom giant AT&T for the 3G phone, which includes a widescreen iPod and a desktop-class web browser.

AT&T heavily subsidises the phone in the United States and makes money by tying the customer to annual subscriptions, whereas Indian mobile providers have no such service lock-ins.

But AirTel said it was confident that despite the price tag the phone would find buyers in India, where nine million wireless subscribers were added in June.

More than 200,000 customers pre-registered for the iPhone, Kapoor said.

Vodafone announced the India launch on its website. No figures were immediately available from Vodafone on pre-booking numbers.

The iPhone, which first debuted in the Unites States in July, was due to go on sale at one minute after midnight on Friday in India.

In Japan, Australia and other parts of the world, Apple fans have queued for hours - and sometimes days - to get their hands on the new iPhone.

Nokia announced pre-booking for its N96, the Finnish company's unofficial answer to the iPhone, earlier this week in India in an apparent move to upstage the Apple offering.

India with its increasingly affluent middle-class has become a key battleground for makers of high-end mobile phones.

Much of the mobile handset market's earlier growth in India was fuelled by the sale of low- and medium-end phones.