Putting an end to rumors that Apple was on the cusp of selling millions of
its popular iPhone smartphones to Chinese mobile operator China Unicom, the AP
reports a company spokesperson said while China Unicom and Apple were indeed in
talks, reports of a deal that would see 5 million iPhones shipped to China
are premature. "Talks between us and Apple have been going on for some
time, but no agreement has been reached yet," Unicom spokesperson Yi Difei told the AP. "There are all kinds
of possibilities. There is no particular timetable for the talks."
The news service also reported that an Apple spokesperson in China,
Tiffany Yang, said she had no knowledge of a deal with China Unicom. The
company, the world's third-largest mobile provider, claimed 125 million GSM
subscribers and 43 million CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) subscribers in
April 2008. The rumors of an iPhone sale broke after a China Business News
report claiming inside sources at China Unicom's Guangdong
subsidiary said Unicom had purchased 5 million handsets for 10 billion yuan, or
$1.5 billion.
As reported in BusinessWeek, Zhou
Youmeng, deputy general manager of Guangdong Unicom, told the Chinese
newspaper that units might be on the market as soon as September. The report
also included an interview with Yu Zhaonan, manager of Guangdong Unicom's
consumer customers department, giving the prices Unicom had paid for the
iPhone, claiming a per-unit sales price from Apple of 2,000 yuan ($292.60).
China is the
world's largest phone market; according to market research company Gartner, 180
million phones were sold in the country during 2008. By comparison, sales in North
America were 49.1 million units, and for all of Europe,
the Middle East and Africa, 229.5
million. Many analysts feel China
is the one market Apple must crack if the iPhone is ever going to gain serious
worldwide market share or if Apple ever hopes to catch Nokia. Apple's worldwide
market share was 0.9 percent in 2008, compared with Nokia's 38.6 percent,
according to Gartner.
China's
importance to Apple also increases when looking at Apple's ranking in the niche
smartphone category. Worldwide, Apple's share is 8.2 percent, while Nokia's
share is nearly 44 percent. Smartphones are selling surprisingly well in China,
with the pricey mobiles accounting for nearly 8 percent of handset sales,
according to Gartner. While the market isn't nearly so large in North
America, smartphone sales are also surprisingly promising,
considering the afflicted state of the mobile ecosystem and macroeconomic stability.
Gartner reported that smartphone sales jumped 27 percent in the second quarter of
2009, with the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Nokia N97 making their market debuts.
Apple's expansion into a larger number of countries in the past year has had
a pronounced effect on its sales volumes, as have the recent price adjustments
for the 8GB 3G iPhone. Sales of 5.4 million units in the second quarter
indicated a 51 percent growth in shipments and helped Apple maintain the No. 3
position in the smartphone market.
Midmarket News & Reviews 
