“At China Mobile’s forum to unveil its new fourth-generation mobile brand in Guangzhou, the company was still coy about its plans to offer Apple’s iPhones,” Lorraine Luk reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“‘We hope to offer iPhones on the company’s network soon,’ Chief Executive Li Yue told The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of the conference, when asked about when China Mobile’s more than 700 million customers can have access to the popular smartphones,” Luk reports. “The Wall Street Journal first reported earlier this month that China Mobile signed a long-awaited deal with Apple which would give the U.S. technology giant access to a subscriber base that is seven times bigger than that of Verizon Wireless, the U.S.’s largest carrier. Greater China, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, is Apple’s third biggest market after the U.S. and Europe in terms of revenue.”
“China Mobile appears to be treading carefully. At the 4G forum, there were plenty of other handset manufacturers including Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp, Lenovo Group Ltd., HTC Corp. and Huawei Technologies Co.,” Luk reports. “‘China Mobile is trying to rally other smartphone makers to make more 4G handsets compatible with its network. So it would not be appropriate to announce the iPhone deal during the global partner conference,’ said Diana Wu, an analyst at Capital Securities.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]TD
Umm. I wonder if this delay is just China Mobile trying to extract some further concessions with Apple from its negotiations? We’ll see soon enough, I guess.
Payola from the wannabes? Pfft. Get lost.
Although I can’t blame them for trying to get other manufacturers to produce phones compatible to their network, I hope the join the rest of the world and stop trying to set arbitrary agendas.
I blame the Wall Street Journal for printing false information and giving a set date. There should be laws against news outlets deliberately spreading unsubstantiated articles as fact.
Agreed!!!
Accountability.
Where is “The Law”? Fines? Other news organization giving the Wall Street Journal its overdue smacking????