“China Mobile could be poised to broaden its 14-month-old alliance with Apple as the US technology giant prepares to release its new wearable smart device, the Apple Watch, next month on the mainland,” Bien Perez reports for The South China Morning Post. “‘We believe it is time for us to expand our collaboration,’ China Mobile chairman Xi Guohua told reporters onn Thursday.”
“Although there have been no talks yet between the two sides about supporting the Apple Watch, Xi said: ‘I can assure you that so long as there is a market for the product in China, that would be the basis of our further collaboration with Apple,'” Perez reports. “Analysts see the mainland as potentially the biggest market for Apple Watch this year. Adding China Mobile, the world’s largest wireless network operator, as a sales channel opens up the opportunity to sell the watch to its 90 million 4G users, out of a total subscriber base of 806.63 million at the end of December last year.”
“‘China Mobile would be able to target more high-end 4G customers by bundling the Apple Watch as an accessory to the iPhone under a tariff plan with additional services,’ said Ricky Lai, a research analyst at Guotai Junan International,” Perez reports. “The Apple Watch will initially be sold in nine markets from April 24, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: iPhone + Apple Watch bundling and China. Those are two things investors generally might like. Possible stock pop to the upside on this news?
Like the sound of this, “accessory plan with additional services”; bundling the Apple Watch sounds like a deal telcos around the world would want to embrace with gusto!!
China has whopping 90 million 4G users!!!! That is an unbelievable stat which will be crucial for Apple watch sales. Looking forward to track this thing in near future.
Never underestimae Apple
“China Mobile expects for expand”? Did this title come from Google Translate?
HA! Bing Translator is even worse.
You’d think ‘Oh, maybe it’s because those Asian languages are so different from western languages!’
Nope. Try translating to and from German. OMFG. It’s time for another translation coding revolution already.