iPhone News Updated

Apple Still in Talks With China Mobile Over iPhone 3G Deal

There is a huge appetite for mobile phones in a country which reportedly boasts over 600 million mobile subscribers. China is widely regarded the world’s biggest market for counterfeit and unlocked iPhones. For many years, China has been delaying its decisions on 3G infrastructure partly hoping to have the Chinese 3G standard, ready for commercial use.

Recent reports that the world’s largest mobile operator is about to reach a deal with Apple and subsidize iPhone 3G, are just rumors.

China Mobile plans to build its 3G infrastructure on the homegrown TD-SCDMA standard, which is incompatible with iPhone’s 3G WCDMA standard. In the meantime, smuggled and unlocked iPhones have been selling fast in China. AFP reported that at least half a million iPhones or “nearly a tenth of the phone’s global shipments of 5.2 million from June 2007 through March 2008″ were sold in China. On the other hand,  as many as 40 percent of all counterfeited and unlocked iPhones are located in China. Possibly by now, over one million iPhones are already in use in China, but more conservative figures place that number to 800,000.

In May 2008, China announced that the telecoms sector will be re-organized. Three 3G networks would be allocated so that China Mobile would retain its GSM customer base and launch 3G onto the Chinese standard, TD-SCDMA. China Unicom would retain its GSM customer base but relinquish its CDMA2000 customer base, and launch 3G on the globally leading WCDMA (UMTS) standard. The CDMA2000 customers of China Unicom would go to China Telecom, which would then launch 3G on the CDMA 1x EV-DO standard. This means that China would have all three main cellular technology 3G standards in commercial use, which would enable Apple to finally bring iPhone 3G to China - legally.

Will it happen soon? China Mobile and Apple have already been negotiating for a year now. “Steve Jobs and I hope the iPhone will enter China as soon as possible,” said Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile’s CEO, on the sidelines of the ITU Telecom Asia 2008 exhibition in Bangkok Tuesday. “We are discussing this issue but we do not have an agreement.”

[Thanks: http://www.palluxo.com]

Comments are closed.