Actually the 'continent' (I assume you mean Europe - if not, sorry then I am wrong) without subsidies where people pay full price for phones is a bit of an urban myth. At least for the time. In fact in at least the larger countries (Germany, UK, France) people very much had to rely on anywhere between 12-24 months contracts to get subsidized phones. Remember, even (the higher end Nokia or Ericsson) feature phones cost several hundred dollars then. I remember having paid 200 DM for my Ericsson T28 way back in the day which would have cost 3x as much if I didn't get it with a contract.