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China Telecom to Start Selling iPhone 4S on March 9th

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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As has been long rumored, China Telecom announced today that it has signed an agreement with Apple Inc to sell iPhones in China. China Telecom will start taking preorders for iPhone 4S on March 2nd with sales beginning on March 9th.

china_telecom.jpg


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China Telecom would be the second carrier in China to carry the iPhone. Previously, China Unicom had exclusive rights to the iPhone in China. Apple PR released a statement to LoopInsight confirming the announcement.
"iPhone 4S has been an incredible hit with customers around the world," Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. "We're thrilled to be launching iPhone 4S with China Telecom and can't wait to get it into the hands of even more customers in China."
Click to expand...
China is a major new market for Apple and Tim Cook described the demand for the iPhone 4S in China as "staggering" this past quarter. Apple also included China specific changes as one of the major new features of OS X Mountain Lion for the Mac.

Article Link: China Telecom to Start Selling iPhone 4S on March 9th
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/02/20/china-telecom-to-start-selling-iphones-on-march-9th/
C

cameronjpu

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2007
1,367
78
ArchaicRevival said:
Somebody's gonna be very pissed off when the iPhone 5 (Or whatever it's gonna be called!) comes out in 9 months LMAO!
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Somebody's always pissed when a new iPhone comes out. I hardly think buying a phone only to have it obsolesced in **9** months is much to complain about, do you? NINE?
 
nylonsteel

nylonsteel

macrumors 68000
Nov 5, 2010
1,551
490
re original article

jeremy lin will be the next spokesperson for aapl in asia

who knows - he may be hired as an official aapl employee sometime down the road - he grew up around aapl hq near stanford

you go jeremy - mvp
 
W

Worf

macrumors regular
Jun 23, 2010
198
8
I wonder in the contract negotiations if Apple did give up the app store revenue sharing to China Telecom. If they did not, sounds like another shrewdly negotiated agreement by Apple. This move practically guarantees that Apple will be more profitable this fiscal year than years past. The scary thing is there is even more room to grow especially in emerging markets in South America like Brazil. Stock value should rise on this news.
 
nick_elt

nick_elt

macrumors 68000
Oct 28, 2011
1,578
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

This reason alone cements the fact that there is no chance to get the next iphone in june
 
rdowns

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
This is huge for Apple. Wondering how they will keep up their amazing growth? China and other emerging markets are the answer.
 
TallManNY

TallManNY

macrumors 601
Nov 5, 2007
4,741
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Apple is still opening major markets for the 4S six months after its introduction! Think about how many phones Apple is going to sell if it can ever sell in all of these markets at the initial introduction of an iPhone. If demand stays this high, we could be looking at a phone that sells 200 million units, right?
 
rdowns

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
TallManNY said:
Apple is still opening major markets for the 4S six months after its introduction! Think about how many phones Apple is going to sell if it can ever sell in all of these markets at the initial introduction of an iPhone. If demand stays this high, we could be looking at a phone that sells 200 million units, right?
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The question is, can Apple even manufacture phones at that rate?
 
J

Jacquesass

macrumors regular
May 6, 2003
211
40
hobo.hopkins said:
You've got that right. If Apple can even begin to satisfy the demand for the iPhone in these areas, I can't imagine how much Apple will continue to grow.
Click to expand...

It's pretty staggering. Apple will now be selling through the #2 and #3 operators in China - but together, they aren't even a third of the total subscribers in China. Also, very few Chinese subscribers are even using 3G.

http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats
Mobile subscribers in China by operator November 2011

Operator Subscribers 3G users
China Mobile 644 million 48 million
China Unicom 196 million 37 million
China Telecom 123 million 33 million
Total 963 million 118 million
 
TallManNY

TallManNY

macrumors 601
Nov 5, 2007
4,741
1,594
rdowns said:
The question is, can Apple even manufacture phones at that rate?
Click to expand...

Apparently Foxconn and other manufacturers are putting millions and even billions into new manufacturing facilities which may come on line this year. So the manufacturing capabilities might start to approach 50 million or maybe in a few years even 100 million iPhones a quarter. I think Apple could sell 100 million iPhones in a full quarter after the release a new phone. World-wide demand might drop to 30 million a quarter after that and possibly even lower as we get closer to a new announcement. But clearly when Apple sells 35 million in a quarter now it is because they just can't make anymore not because there aren't new markets to tap into.
 
alphaod

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
It's not surprising China Telecom will be carrying the iPhone (as they are a CDMA service provider). However they do use RUIMs (SIMs for CDMA), so I'm curious how that would be handled on the iPhone 4S—would they use a special build of the iPhone 4S that uses RUIMs or will they use the regular iPhone 4S?

Honestly I'm hoping they release an iPhone for use on China Mobile's 3G network, but that's unlikely any time soon seeing that China Mobile uses their own 3G network standard.

ArchaicRevival said:
Somebody's gonna be very pissed off when the iPhone 5 (Or whatever it's gonna be called!) comes out in 9 months LMAO!
Click to expand...

Most people in China can't tell the difference between the iPhone 4 and the 4S, so nobody is going to complain when the next revision is release.
 
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