“In line with Apple’s plans to make this year’s iPhone launch its fastest roll-out ever, China Unicom expects to launch the iPhone 5 within three months of the September 21st launch,” Trefis Team reports for Forbes.
“While regulatory approval remains the only bottleneck, it should not be a significant worry since China Unicom has mostly been able to schedule its iPhone launches within the three month time frame.,” Trefis reports. “The next step for Apple in China would obviously be China Telecom, and in keeping with the Apple tradition of giving each carrier a year’s time with each iteration of the iPhone, we can expect the carrier to launch the iPhone in the Feb-March period.”
Trefis reports, “A China Mobile deal will however remain elusive until Apple uses a TD-SCDMA compatible chipset in the iPhone. How soon that will happen is open to speculation for now. But, knowing that the iPhone 5 supports LTE, if iSuppi’s iPhone 5 teardown reveals one of Qualcomm’s 2nd-gen 28nm LTE basebands, a China Mobile deal should not be too far along”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
There is no need to worry about this as HONG KONG will help CHINA to get the IPHONE 5 even TODAY. That is why HK is among the first launch countries.
i am from HONG KONG. I can say the iphone grey market is VERY crazy today . If u have two iphone 5 , the profit you earned is ONE NEW IPHONE 5 .
If u buy from Apple store, u must do the lucky draw EVERY DAY , if u won, u can buy TWO iPhone the next day.
I bought my IPHONE 5 from a carrier in HONG KONG, I need to wait 5 hours to join the service plan. I can resell my iphone to the grey market . What they are willing to pay to me enough covers my mobile tariff.
Even the china custioms may punish those who bring iphone 5 to china. What I heard of is the smugglers are willing to pay the fine by customs if they are caught as they are still profitable after being fined.
IPHONE 5 really really powerful and unbelievable
And OCT 1st is CHINA NATIONAL DAY , a typical day people like to send gifts to each other. IPHONE is the best idea of gift and a typical gift for bribe .
And IPHONE is the only choice to show the richness. Samsung cant do this in CHINA. That is what you guys may not know .
Raymond, any idea why the download rate for our free app is 10 China to 1 USA?
How many iPhone users do you estimate are there now in China?
Can’t estimate how many , but it Is big . The more expensive iPhone is , the more popular it is .
And those who buy from Hong Kong grey market are china mobile customers who can’t bring their numbers to other carriers so they must buy standalone iPhones . The number is very big .
I hope they get it tomorrow. I’d like to see the stock hit 750 by next week.