News on which carrier will hold exclusive rights to the iPhone when it eventually arrives over in the U.K and Europe in the fourth quarter of 2007 is beginning to heat up.

Vodafone and O2 have always seemed to be the most likely choices as respectively they are the first and second largest mobile network carriers in the U.K. However, news from ThinkSecret suggests that Orange are now in the running to gain exclusive rights.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been anything said to assume Orange are in on the chase other than obvious speculation - why wouldn’t they want to hold exclusive rights to the iPhone? I’m thinking whoever does gain exclusive rights will wait to see how well Apple’s mobile phone does in the States first before making any announcements - so it’s going to be a long wait yet before we find out.

[Via Mad4Mobiles]