China Telecom to sell iPhones; China Mobile still months away
(Reuters) - Apple Inc has signed with China Telecom to sell its iPhone in China from next month as it looks to boost its flagging share of the world's biggest mobile phone market.
While Apple has now signed up with two of China's big three carriers, the biggest, China Mobile Ltd, with more than 600 million subscribers, doesn't yet have compatible technology.
China Mobile has been aggressively negotiating with Apple to sell the iPhone, but it uses a home-grown proprietary 3G technology called TD-SCDMA that Apple doesn't support. It is, however, trialing its 4G TD-LTE network, with a commercial launch expected late this year or early in 2013, which will serve as a precursor to a deal with Apple.
Apple's smartphone market share in China, where the number of mobile phone users will top 1 billion this year, has fallen in the last two quarters, and it ranked fifth in October-December with 7.5 percent, overtaken by fast-growing local firm ZTE Corp.
"Apple's iPhone market share in China will be quite steady after its deal with China Telecom," said Jane Wang, an analyst with Ovum in Beijing.
"The deal is bound to boost iPhone sales, but telecom operators won't be giving up the mid- and low-tier smartphone market, and sales of those phones will still be quite strong."
China Telecom, valued at more than $46 billion but still ranked the smallest of China's big three carriers, said on Tuesday it would take online applications for the iPhone 4S from
March 2, and aimed to commence sales on March 9, bundling a phone with a service contract. READ MORE...
| Posted by Lee Chyen Yee and Huang Yuntao on Feb 21, 2012 | ||
| 0 Comments |  Post A Comment |
|
