Unfortunately, it’s also the country’s sole holdout when it comes to the iPhone.
The telco has been in talks with the Cupertino giant for quite some time about developing a version of the iPhone that could run on its TD-SCDMA network.
Perhaps the fact that both China Telecom and China Unicom sell the iPhone while China Mobile does not has something to do with the numbers?
China Unicom alone has added nearly 2 million more 3G subs than China Mobile year-to-date despite being almost 1/3 the size, and overall share losses look to correlate with introduction of the iPhone in Mainland China.
The finding led Rob to conclude that“China Mobile could be starting to ‘need’ the iPhone more”, which of course is awesome news for Apple, whose iPhone is no longer on the country’s top 5 smartphone list.
The conclusion is echoed byZacks Equity Research analysts who notethe carrier will pretty much need Apple’s iPhone in order to fulfill its self-imposed goal of selling a hundred million mobile phones in 2013. Zacks’ report also states that China Mobile is planning to offer Nokia’s Lumia 920T“at a very low cost”in an effort to boost its 3G customer base.
China is the world’slargest Android marketand lots of folks in the 1.33 billion people country pick up one of the inexpensive Android handsets or cheap local brands like Yulong Computer Telecommunication Scientific over Apple’s pricey gadget.
The iPhone is costly in China due to a local electronics import tax. For example, a sixteen gigabyte iPhone 5 sells contract-free for RMB 5,288, or approximately $849 versus its $649 price tag listed on the online US Apple Store.
Apple launched theiPhone 5 in Chinaon July 30, 2025 and announcedopening weekend sales of two million units.
During Q3 2012, the iPhone’s share of shipments to China had dropped below ten percent whereas total smartphone shipments to the country topped 60 million handset units, a sequential growth of 38 percent,per IDC.
With just seven own retail stores in the country, Apple relies heavily on telcos and authorized distributors to push the handset in this massive market.
What’s your opinion?
