“As the mainland’s first official vendor of the iPhone, Unicom said it would sell the handsets for about Rmb5,000 ($732.50) each, without specifying which model that would apply to. Subscribers can choose from eight service plans, ranging from Rmb126 to Rmb886 a month. Users who sign a two-year contract to spend more than Rmb186 per month would receive handset subsidies of up to Rmb4,253,” Lau reports. “According to Sina, China’s biggest portal, subscribers who choose the top service plan and prepay Rmb7,999 in credit will receive a 3GS model of the iPhone with 32GB of memory free of charge.”
Lau reports, “By comparison, AT&T in the US offers the same iPhone model for $299 each with a two-year contract based on a $69.99 to $149.99 monthly service plan. None of the models sold by Unicom comes with WiFi capabilities, as demanded by the country’s regulators.”
Full article here.
Finally they’ll get a nearly 100% real iPhone, less wifi. I bet they’re in for a big surprise if they compare it to the knockoffs & have access to application downloads.
From the sounds of it, that $700+ price is if they buy it outright. With a long-term commitment, it will be subsidized just like AT&T;does. So the price isn’t that crazy at all… it’s what the phone’s actual retail cost is here too.
Why don’t you translate all the currency figures in this article to dollars?
Good point gizmodan.
Also why does china not want wifi?
China has it’s own WiFi standard but this will be interesting, lot of companies use international WiFi standard inside their offices. If the iPhone really is missing WiFi, how many days does it take for somebody to come up with a hack or two to get around it.
让大屠杀开始
血浴
as well
What does “Rmb” stand for? I know Yuan is the PRC currency.
@ silverhawk: see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rmb
basically, the yuan has been the Chinese currency for a long time; since before PRC existed. So, the suffix “renminbi” was appended, this meaning, literally, “people’s currency”. So, either term is frequently used to describe PRC currency.
我希望他们挑选了更多的运营商太多！
126 Yuan = $18.44 a month (to $129.64)
More then 186 renminbi/mo = $27.21
Subsidies up to Rmb 4,253 = $622.33
Prepay Rmb 7999 = $1,170
Hmmm… a Sword of Truth fan. The TV series I’ve seen so far are pretty bad, the books were great.
@ Eakster
> Also why does china not want wifi?
Because the state can turn off the wireless carrier network (control it) if necessary. They cannot control WiFi access so easily.
Still, it is pretty dumb, since there are probably tens of millions laptops with WiFi in China, and there is no new restriction of WiFi on “real” computers.
But big news for Apple, that this is finally official with a launch date. The top two wireless carriers in China have more current paying subscribers than the population of the U.S. Of course, they can’t all afford to get an iPhone, but these are people who already pay to use a mobile phone. The entire population of the U.S. can’t afford to use an iPhone either.
This may help those that wonder why wifi is, most likely deactivated, or slightly probable that it’s not in the hardware of the C-iPhone. From a quick Google search.
“The buzz from China is that MIIT is testing an iPhone with WiFi disabled … if true, then Apple has made the decision to forego inclusion of WAPI. NOTE: These restrictions will apply to ALL smartphone manufacturers who offer WiFi enabled phones in China – Apple, RIM, Palm, Nokia, HTC, et. al. They will either include WAPI or they MUST disable WiFi.”