A rumor is circulating that the iPhone may be finally making its way to China. The original source of the rumor is China Communications, which has cited a China Mobile insider as its source. According to the source, China Mobile will be offering the iPhone at a heavily subsidized discount in order to court the massive Chinese population, many of whom would have trouble affording an unsubsidized phone.
An article from It.hexun.com (translated here), says that the source is a member of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and offers further details:
China Mobile will procure the handsets for their full price, and then on-sell subsidized handsets to consumers. The source explained that China Mobile could buy a 3G iPhone from Apple for USD 299 – an example price – and then sell the handset to users for USD 199, treating the additional USD 100 as compensation to Apple.
Past talks between China Mobile and Apple have failed, largely because of Apple’s past insistence on taking a portion (believed to be between 20-30 percent) of the carrier’s monthly fees from iPhone customers.
With the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple stopped insisting on a rev-share agreement with carriers. An earlier report on a possible deal explained that the largest hurdle had been removed, but there were still “practical issues” that had to be taken care of.
Thanks to The China Perspective for the tip.
It’s going to be a serious rumble in China between Android and iPhone when they both simulteneously try to pitch the chinese…
http://www.ShawnDrewry.com
In that case, iPhone will be the sure winner VS Google Android. One of my contact in China kept asking us for pre-owned iPhones even though we don’t sell them. Apple has great brand recognition in China, and China Mobile data plan is only USD$2/month!
offcourse it will
why not only 1B
people over there
rc
trading tennis blog
Of course they are going to China. There’s more of them there than there is in the USA.
Google Android was featured on Attack of the Show last week.
iPhone in China, China blocking iTunes, What’s the point?
Of course govern blocked itunes because there lived always illegal contents published on itune ,such as about tibet.
You should know that china mobile got an online music store named wireless music charts with more than 50 millions subscribers.
So colabration would be commited based on china mobile’s subscribers.
Looking at subsidiry,we should remember that IPHONE was made in China.Inspite of custom taxes,cost of it is more lower than in US.
At last, APPLE has no good enough logistic system in china to support the chinese massiv market with the ammount of shipment more than 100k per month.So it should depends on china mobile’s supporting.
By the way,the second retail store in china would be opened on chrismas eve in Qian men walking street,the most historical site of Beijing ,china.
um, i barely touch the itunes store on my iPhone and iTunes in general was blocked in China all of a few days in the Olympics. highly doubt that’s going to deter Apple from wanting to *finally* sell these to 700 million mobile phone customers.
On the other side,APPLE was afraid that ITUNEs could be broken in china,
.
apple would gain lots of money,but could not play a big roll in china.
A Chinese language version? It’s an interesting (but not new) thought that when Apple developed its iPhone, did they intend to make it language neutral.
http://afewtips.com
Practical = “How do we censor this thing?”
um, didn’t they have copy cat iphones since day one? Is this news?
Seriously… now Apple is going to have jailbroken iPhones all over China, and people can’t tell a copy cat from a real one.
Regardless iTunes is blocked, and Safari will be just as censored, let alone the App Store now =P
stupid common
Everyone I know in China who wanted an iPhone when it first came out. Already has one. A real one. A jailbroken one.
And yea, there are copycats. But newsflash…the real iPhone is made in China *gasp!* and that really hasn’t stopped folks outside of China from buying them by the hordes has it?
Ummm? If the iPhone is made in China how can the iPhone come to China? Wouldn’t it just be staying in China?
iphone could not be sold in china now,because of the absence of the mobilephone licences.APPLE china are attempting to acchieve the license of that now.After that, mobile phone providers should pass the test of the carriers.
Each iphone was made in chinese factories and then be delivered to Taiwan or malysira for assembling.
As we knew, the cost of iphone 3g’s BOM(bill of materials) was about 120 USD,instead of 210USD of the IPHONE.
In 2007,the amount of shipment of china mobile’s mobile phone was up to 25 millions.the total amount in china is about 150 millions.Most of them were sold in the little stores all over the streets.
hmmm, could have sworn I saw dozens of Chinese with iPhone-ish phones in Beijing during the Games.
Side note – TC increased by 9K feedburner tracked readers in 1 day? Wow.
“Side note – TC increased by 9K feedburner tracked readers in 1 day? Wow.”
Feedburner stats are horribly inaccurate.
true, but still, I doubt the stats are off that much.
I think it’s great news but we all know that China is well known for its knock offs. Scrary indeed
Wonder what measures they will put to forbid them from selling the phones (to other countries) since they’ll be getting them at subsidized prices.
Oh common, pirated IPhone has been there even before the original release in the states.
Cheers,
Andrei
UMapper – http://www.umapper.com
For the love of god… kill urls in the comments
“Is The iPhone Coming To China?”
Coming to China? When did it ever leave? All of the parts where made there. The electronics that the rest of the world use to broadcast 3G was made there, the rubber, the plastic, even the pencils that some engineer used to conceive the drawings on the back of a napkin were made in China. Heck, even the napkin.
The iPhone isn’t about to arrive in China….it’s always been there.
Of they will because there’s a huge market in China…
http://www.KidT...ru.blogspot.com
Is there too much iPhone coverage on TC? Answer: Yes.
Did anyone else see this ridiculous ad in their RSS feed along with this post?
http://tinyurl.com/5pxovp
Chinese HiPhone… maybe that is what the Chinese citizens will be getting after all.
China is the king of imitators
visit mp3 songs resources http://www.lagu...oi.blogspot.com
The iPhone is already huge in China. CMCC estimates they have 400,000+ iPhone users on their network. As for the random baseless comments on censorship, there is no censorship of any part of the iPhone or its supporting software here. Censoring iTunes? Where do you come up with this stuff?
Wow,Iphone is coming to China! That is so great that i can buy one =) I really like apple’s products.
here is one more thing india can learn from china- how to subsidize product and capture mkt. iphone got launched in india last week for around 800$.
I guess now the black mkts in india are going to be flooded with chinese iphones. ne ways I am please as I now expect a cheaper iphone in black mkt now
Haha but the iPhone is already in China.
Its in Hong Kong (although its a special region)
still its already in china…. =]
but yeah im sure china will get it soon
Although iPhone 1.0 was illegal in China, it became the second largest iPhone market in the world (after the U.S). The one who benefited the most from illegal iPhone supplies to China was Apple, of course. With iPhone 2.0 Apple decided to change it’s policy making it very difficult to get the device without signing the contract.This decision made illegal iPhones 2.0 extremely expensive and, thus, the demand significantly dropped. Now Apple decides to supply iPhones to it’s largest illegal market legally, to increase the demand once again.
It is the same scheme Apple uses in the third largest iPhone market, Russia.
We don’t need stupid overpriced iJunk in China. Steve Jobs could shove that Apple “taste” right up his own a$$. The guy is so arrogant his Apple store came over here, selling pro-Tibet-independence album to offend 1.4B Chinese. Imagine if a Chinese corp set up a music shop in US selling pro Bin Laden albums. I’m surprised the government has not kicked Apple out yet. Make sure the door hits their a$$, please.
Oh dear, the ChineseGuy who can’t find China on the map. There’s more junk made and sold in China then anywhere on the planet, but you want to protect China from Apple? Your problem is that Apple is everywhere in Beijing, Shanghai, I was there in June ‘08. Everybody knows the difference between the cheap knock-off and the real thing. Make sure to protect your a$$ so it doesn’t hurt too much when you talk.
Woa, you spent a month in China and then thought you know China better than a Chinese, huh? To put that in perspective, let me quote Shaq O’Neal’s here, “That’s like a white boy trying to be more n***er than me.” Get a friggin’ clue FFS.
Now take this as a friendly reminder: Don’t mess with China on Taiwan, Tibet or any other political hot spots regardless who the *beep* you are. M$, Google and Yahoo all learned that, and sometime the hard way. If Jobs wants to do business with China, better check his ego at door. Because it’s gonna be our way or no way. Make no *beep*ing mistake about it.
you make me ashamed to be chinese
Subsidized iPhones? How do i get Chinese citizenship?
One iPhone per Child!
Woa, instead of Confucius, you quote Shaq? How modern of you…
You obviously have comprehension problems and not because of English being your second language. I never said I knew China better then Chinese, I was responding to you spewing moronic trash about Apple and calling Apple’s products “overpriced iJunk”. I don’t believe you are Chinese, because Chinese have great respect for quality and success and you obviously have no clue. Chinese today have also recognized the value of doing good business and there is every reason to believe that Apple, after concluding proper negotiations, will have great future there with iPhone and all other products, Tibet or Taiwan notwithstanding.
You want to politicize the issue for whatever sick reasons you have, but I say you are a fraud.
If anyone want to get the business model of apple in china,you could mail me. I worked in China mobile for more than 6 years.
Hi heard u say abt getting apple stuff. anything about it up for grab?
pls email me the details and all to sezretz@gmail.com
I am interested in only authentic products from Apple.
The flag in the image you made should be rotated 90 degrees counter clockwise or the hand should be holding the phone “landscape” style
It is already launched in India but because of the higher price right now, everyone isn’t willing to buy it just yet. Would be interesting to see how it goes in China!
China don’t need iphone~
Like many have said before me, the iPhone is immensely popular in China, particularly in Beijing. I moved from Palo Alto to Beijing and I probably see as many iPhones every day as I did in Palo Alto.
I happened to stumble upon the opening of the first Apple store in China the day it opened, and it was a sh*tshow. There was a line of 500 people just to get into the store! That little Tibet hiccup will subside (Like the protests against Carrefour did) and the Chinese will forget about it and continue drooling over and buying Apple.
If there’s any one rule for economics in China, it’s that in the way of physical products, demand beats all other factors, law included.
Hi come and download some songs for iPhone
lagusempoi.blogspot.com
http://www.myih...2u.blogspot.com
I have seen subsidy on rations , diesel , cooking gas and the government here in india lessened these subsidies with much difficulty but i am surprised by a subsidy on a high end phone by a communist republic. this can happen only in china .
I wont not be surprised if the chinese telecom company put some measure in this deal to monitor peoples movement even t invades peoples privacy. but they must have being doing it already . even though it is a communist nation there must be rules made in its so called liberalised economy not to favour some particular company.
The network is not ready.
Unless iPhone release TD cdma version
Well, I think it’s still very very far away from reality
Although iPhone 1.0 was illegal in China, it became the second largest iPhone market in the world (after the U.S). The one who benefited the most from illegal iPhone supplies to China was Apple, of course. With iPhone 2.0 Apple decided to change it’s policy making it very difficult to get the device without signing the contract.This decision made illegal iPhones 2.0 extremely expensive and, thus, the demand significantly dropped. Now Apple decides to supply iPhones to it’s largest illegal market legally, to increase the demand once again.
It is the same scheme Apple uses in the third largest iPhone market, Russia.
Yo one thing I bet you guys dont know and is probably irelevant to most americans in this forum is that 2.2 finally enables CHINA MAN like me to use the gps function in maps . Man Ive been waiting for ages for this . I think Im the first one to discover this hahahhhaaa This to me signals that with this update, the LEGIT arrival of iphone in China is imminent .
wow its like asking if china going us way in the global marketing arena .. i wonder if they would do that and so it would ever happen, but who knows !!!
no other phone is as comfortable than this one bcoz easy to handle slim and fit and also a good satisifation keep it up china
As one of consumers from China, I know that there are tremendous people keen to buy apple’s products, not only Iphone, but also macbook, ipod. They don’t care price becase all is crazy about it.
FYI Chinese guy. Steve Jobs has terminal cancer and a net worth of more than 4 billion USD. I doubt he is concerned about selling you a phone.
Why not develop your own technology and use it?
Why is China Mobile still hesitating to sign the contract?I really want an iPhone 3G but it costs roughly $700 USD here and that’s just the 8GB….complete ripoff.