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China Mobile junks Apple offer on iPhone
By admin | April 14, 2008
Apple’s plan to tap China Mobile for the official release of iPhone in China suddenly went puff!
This after an official of China Mobile, the largest mobile phone carrier in China with more than 300 million subscriber, said the business models of the two companies are not compatible and thus “there are no negotions”.
China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said that concerns about business models and commercialization have prevented thet wo sides from further continuing talks to sell the iPhone in China.
But Wang said it is “not closing its door” to Apple “as long as there is customer demand”.
Apple was planning to release the iPhone in China this year but the company’s desire to share subscriber revenue with China Mobile seems to be not the plan of the Chinese mobile carrier giant and probably the world’s largest mobile phone company.
We earlier reported about Apple talking with China Mobile for iPhone partnership but China Mobile reportedly down the offer in January and told Steve Jobs it was not interested on iPhone. Steve Jobs in return said it was just a prelimenary meeting as he hopes to really forged a partnership with the Chinese mobile carrier.
Apple is yet to officialy ship the iPhone in Asia this year with millions of mobile phone lovers so excited to get their hands on the much-talked-about phone. Yes, the iPhone is not yet available in Asia but how come 40,000 units have already been sold in China?
So the 40,000 iPhone units sold in China arrived at Mao’s cradle even without the consent of Apple. Was it illegal? Suppliers have partnered with local Chinese stores in selling the unlocked iPhones, explaining the discrepancies between AT&T’s figure of sold iPhone units and that of Apple’s statistics.
Topics: China Mobile, iPhone China |