China Mobile deal is extremely important for Apple thrive in China, say experts

A poll conducted by Chinese web portal Sina.com suggests that Chinese customers are not so excited about the new iteration of smartphone from Apple, the iPhone 5. A state-run Chinese newspaper Xinhua published the report saying that majority of the people asked about the new iPhone said they are not interested in the handset.

“I will consider buying the iPhone 5 after it is available in China, maybe in several months, but the impulse has dimmed into inertia,” Xinhua quoted Wang Yao, a 26-year-old white-collar worker in Beijing, as saying.

China Mobile is not only the biggest wireless carrier in the country but also the world in terms of subscribers and there is yet to come a deal with Apple. China Mobile runs its own home-developed data streaming network which is not compatible with Apple’s HSPA and LTE chips. Qualcomm is the only maker of such chips that support China Mobile’s network.

However, analysts have suggested that due to fast growing market, Apple will certain close a deal with the carrier. According to some, the two companies are already in the process of debugging the issues with the compatibility.

iPhone 5 is a luxury mobile phone in China and due to its higher price it is only affordable to some. Smaller carriers like China Telecom and China Unicom, who run the standard formats of 3G and 4G, sell iPhones on contracts but their reach in the country is limited.

According to an estimate, if Apple and China Mobile pen down a deal on the new iPhone 5, and older models thereafter, the carrier might be able to persuade at least 4 percent of the users to buy the handset. That is an addition of 27.3 Million unit sales to Apple.

Apple is the third largest seller of smartphones in China with 10 percent market share, trailing Lenovo (11 percent) and Samsung (19 percent).

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Posted by Usman Khalid on Sep 15 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.