China Unicom Announces 3 Year iPhone Deal

[MacRumors]

Engadget points out a China Unicom press release which officially announces that the company has come to an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in China:

On 28 August, the Company and Apple reached a three-year agreement for the Company to sell iPhone in China. The initial launch is expected to be in the fourth calendar quarter of 2009. This will provide users with brand new communication and information experience.

The announcement ends months of rumors and speculation about Apple's entry into the Chinese mobile phone market. Few details were provided in the announcement. Previous rumors had suggested the Chinese iPhone would be customized for that particular market even excluding Wi-Fi capabilities.

Article Link: China Unicom Announces 3 Year iPhone Deal

 

[patricksan]

Just some more millions of iPhone will be sold.

Will they have full access to the App Store?

 

[talkingfuture]

This could be massive for potential sales of the iPhone, assuming enough of China's huge population can afford the iPhone. I wonder just how many that is?

 

[kymac]

$$$$$

 

[niuniu]

The Chinese know how to spend, and they love their designer goods, toys and marque cars even at the vastly inflated prices they sell for over there. The iPhone will be a sellout with any price tag.

 

[zxcvb]

This could be massive for potential sales of the iPhone, assuming enough of China's huge population can afford the iPhone. I wonder just how many that is?

oh please, as a poor ass college student in 2001 at shanghai, my cellphone was worth $750. An iPhone should be easier than affordable by now

 

[queshy]

Finally...

 

[darkpaw]

oh please, as a poor ass college student in 20001 at shanghai, my cellphone was worth $750. An iPhone should be easier than affordable by now

I wonder what version of the iPhone will be available in 20001

No, seriously, this is good news for both Apple and users everywhere. If they have an App Store China, there'll be lots of opportunities for Apple to make more money, and for developers in China to make money. Also, non-Chinese developers might want to localise their apps for China now as their market has just gotten bigger.

 

[teme]

Well, hopefully Apple can deliver some new iPhones to Europe before it is released in China... lots of european customers who preordered iPhone in July are still waiting for it, and estimated delivery is in the end of september...

 

[Mr.Jagil]

EVERY DAMN TIME I read it as "China Unicorn" and get utterly confused for a second.

 

[designgeek]

I wonder if they'll have MMS...

 

[jayducharme]

This is an exciting opportunity for Apple to expand their market — but at what cost? I find it disturbing that they'll allow the iPhone to be sold there without WiFi ability. That means that Unicorn will completely control what users are able to access. It's strange, since any WiFi hotspots must go through one carrier or another in China. I'm not sure what the point is, outside of preventing any access if users travel outside the country.

 

[niuniu]

I wonder if they'll have MMS...

MMS.. what's that then?

 

[michelepri]

very slow

I can't believe how slow they were to reach an agreement with someone that would sell the IPhone in China. It looks like Apple can afford to waste large amounts of money just for being lazy about signing a deal. How is China Unicom? They don't even have a decent web site.

 

[twoodcc]

now this is huge for apple and the iphone! glad they finally got it worked out

 

[BeyondtheTech]

...And App Store favorites such as PocketGod and iFart can look forward up to $980,000,000 in net profits. I should be so lucky...

 

[*LTD*]

EVERY DAMN TIME I read it as "China Unicorn" and get utterly confused for a second.

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A400 Safari/528.16)

Good news for china.

 

[mccldwll]

I can't believe how slow they were to reach an agreement with someone that would sell the IPhone in China. It looks like Apple can afford to waste large amounts of money just for being lazy about signing a deal.

You're joking, right?

 

[BeyondtheTech]

Make a bunch of factories over there, get plenty of cheap labor to make the products, then have them ship it over here, only to package it and sell it back to them at full subsidized retail value.

Now, that's capitalism, baby!

 

[amac4me]

A great way for Apple to increase the iPhone (and Apple product) footprint.

 

[Merkuryy]

欢迎来中国！！！

PS: I wrote this with an iPhone bought in China ,lol

 

[Michael73]

Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

This just turned Peter Oppenheimer into a giggly little schoolboy

 

[.:R2theT]

I can't believe how slow they were to reach an agreement with someone that would sell the IPhone in China. It looks like Apple can afford to waste large amounts of money just for being lazy about signing a deal.

Seriously. A faster deal/contract is not a better deal/contract. A company like Apple has to be careful about these types of contracts. It's quite a bit different than dealing with AT&T or O2 or Orange. Apple basically just signed a contract with the People's Republic of China, not just some telcom!

 

[BeyondtheTech]

Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

That's so racist... LOL