“China Unicom Ltd. is willing to hold talks with Apple Inc. to bring the popular iPhone to China… ‘It seems that iPhone is hot in some markets. We are willing to discuss with Apple,’ [said] Li Zhengmao, executive director and vice president of China Unicom,” Lorraine Luk reports for Dow Jones Newswires.
“The executive, however, said the company hasn’t held talks with Apple yet. ‘We are interested in discussing,’ Li said, without elaborating,” Luk reports.
Full article here.
Earlier today, China Mobile Ltd. Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou said that the company is in talks with Apple Inc. to bring the iPhone to China. An agreement with China Mobile would give Apple access to a market with 523 million subscribers, more than the total population of the European Union.
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, oh. Two rival carriers want the iPhone exclusive in a certain (large) country, but only one can have it. Quite the conundrum. Whatever shall Apple CEO Steve Jobs do?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mike in Helsinki” for the heads up.]
Milk it baby …. for all it’s worth.
Uhhh…. Sell the company and give the money back to the shareholders?
Right?
陶曉清湯. 花萬沙浪高山青阿里山之!
歌那魯灣四大天王劉張. 學友黎明德華張張學友黎明-學友黎明. 張學友黎明張學友黎明郭富…
歌那魯灣四. 友黎明德華張張學友黎明-學友友黎明德華張張學友黎明!
MW: 友
China is big enough for two exclusive relationships for Apple’s iPhone, and that would increase coverage as well. Why not?
Bidding War? Oh, God. Pelosi and Reid are already looking for a way to pull out……
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As an American that formerly lived in China for more than five years, I can tell you that if China Mobile wants the iPhone, they will get it. China Unicom, like China Mobile, is a government-controlled carrier, but only a niche player in China. China Mobile is the Microsoft of the market, whilst Unicom is the Apple in terms of market share. In terms of service and coverage, China mobile is the Apple and Unicom is the Microsoft………their coverage and general service sucks! They started out in th e90’s as a CDMA only carrier, which never took off and they only switched to GSM much later. The only people I know that use Unicom are the few whose companies are somehow tied to Unicom and are forced to use them!
Look for China Mobile to get the deal!
On another note, I certainly hope they sell the iPhone unlocked over here. At present, there is no such thing as a locked mobile phone.Any phone you buy, with or without contract, can be used with a GSM card from any carrier in any country. I carry cards for Thailand, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia and Dubai, so I can talk local when traveling. That would kill me to lose that flexibility or to have to carry a second, non iPhone phone.
C’mon, Apple, set the iPhone free!
Don’t force me to buy a hacked iPhone, like so many of my friends in Asia have already had to do. I want to do the right thing, and am prepared to pay a premium for the open platform, but you have to first allow that flexibility!
Help us to help you!
Bidding War? Oh, God. Bush and Cheney are already looking for a way to steal the oil. And use all the poor people as army men to do their bidding…..
Said the army guy – ‘He’s a man I could really sit down with and have a beer that GW, but I’m dead!’ Said the Repuckican – Man my wallets so heavy, I need to hire a few more illegals to carry it. Said the people of China – we financed your war and own your ass…hehe, hehe! Said Fox Noise – Brown people in China, they disgust me, and Hilary will let them all become Americans if elected president.
@TT
Pitiful attempt at humor, but you managed to sum up the nuttiness of the far left perfectly. Kudos!
Please bring iPhone to Asia as soon as possible, not only to China but Asean, South Asian and all of them. The potential is too large to imagine !!
Perhaps it’s better to say “Return the iPhone to China”, since ALL iPhones are manufactured in China in the first place. Seems only fair that they would get them back.
@Towertone – the original…
now that was funny bro.
here is what is happening:
-China Unicom is CDMA
-China Unicom is struggling against the largest mobile company in the world: China Mobile
-China Unicom needs the iPhone for lift and will meet apple’s hefty revenue sharing scheme
here is why apple will choose Unicom and make it a CDMA fon:
-making a CDMA fon will allow apple to use au mobile in Japan which is also CDMA
-it also accesses australia and brazil and korea all in cdma which are major markets.
-apple defintely would like to hook up with au in japan since it always struggles with market share in japan for mac products and au fits apple’s marketing strategy and customer profile.
@ Singapore Mac Guy
I’m not too bothered myself abt having to sign a contract to get the iPhone from SingTel/Starhub/M1 but i do agree that having an unlocked option wld be great. Maybe they can “lock” it for use in Singapore but let us use any GSM SIM card from any carrier while overseas? Am i making any sense?
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Also, Starhub just announced “Asia’s first-ever pay-per-day data roaming flat-rate service”. A pre-emptive strike perhaps?
@ niji
Personally, i think China Mobile will get the deal. CDMA edition for Japan? Do they even hv a choice? As for the rest (most) of Asia, GSM will be the way to go.
Somewhere down the line, Apple may have no choice but to make both GSM and CDMA versions of the iPhone.
Comments?
Steve Jobs played the first Chinese telecom “China Mobile Ltd. ” to boost his sagging stock price knowing quite well the competition situtation with the other Chinese telecom “China Unicom”.
Steve Jobs know quite well that the Chinese copy EVERYTHING and the government has a heavy hand in buisness, especially telecoms.
The Chinese simply don’t make enough money to buy a premium product Apple charges on a large enough scale that a phone requires.
The iPhone has already been copied, and it will be again and made cheaper without paying Cupertino anything.
Apple will have to get the Chinese to “play fair” and obey copyrights and such. So far not even microsoft has been able to do that.
So what other reason is these press announcements? Stock inflation.
Apple will not make a deal with a company that refuses to pay part of the monthly contract fees. We may well see a replay of the AT&T;vs. Verizon scenario in China.
Nuttiness? A war being waged for oil, on the Chinese dime is nuttiness? Wow, you really need to stop watch Bill O’really!
Oh, good, another pissing duel.
I don’t watch O’Reilly or Hannity. Matter of fact I spent most of my radio listening time yesterday with NPR’s Diane Rehm (who looks nothing like she sounds) talking about the economy and Ed Shultz defending his stance on Hillary. I don’t travel to many markets that carry him, so I don’t catch it too often.
And this war has always been about oil, ever since (1)Saddam invaded Kuwait, and (2)that it became apparent that others use oil profits to fund terrorist. No big news there.
Spare me the lecture on who has a right to it. The entire world depends on a stable oil supply. You disrupt that, and you will see much, MUCH more death from all corners.
Now that we settled that, you can go work on your JKF/UFO/NIxon connection, or whatever evil plot the loonies imagined, er uncovered this week.
see what happens when you bang on the glass.
Can we win? I don’t think you can win it.
–George W. Bush
08/30/2004
According to a Reuters report, the deal with China Mobile is off. See the article here:
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSHKG11318220071114
If I bang on the glass, my giant monitor falls over!
TT – Oil is el diablo, don’t need to go much farther than that. By ‘Loonies’ do you mean Canadians?
@@@TT
NO! At least I hope the Canadian dollar is not plotting against common sense….(I use the pre-1980’s definition)