And now it's official: China Unicom has struck a 3-year
exclusive deal to finally bring the iPhone to China's massive subscriber-base potential. The carrier will offer two different "3G iPhones" to its 141 million subscribers and it will buy the phones wholesale from Apple -- no revenue sharing deal here kids. Neither Apple nor China Unicom will reveal specs on the phones (WiFi?) or pricing. So that's it, short and sweet after what feels like
years of rumors. But really, unless you live in China and subscribe to China Unicom what else is there to know?
Update: There was apparently an error in the
WSJ piece -- the deal is
not exclusive to China Unicom.
Read -- China Unicom announcement
Read -- More detail
posted August 28th 2009 4:32AM
Not complaining but whats with the little fallout dude? Seen that on a few pics here now. I loved the game, unfortunatly havent beaten it yet.
Kelmon has a point, even if the Chicoms can afford the iPhone, will their little hands be able to hold on to them? Can the phone withstand getting run over by a tank?
Why is it that China is so strange ?
What's up with these crazy people that run that place. No Wifi ? There own Blu Ray standard ? + a Whole heap of other rubbish.
You would love to be an inventor in China - every MF would steel your shi - t.
They don't like their money going to foreigners. Although they love getting money from foreigners.
So they have a homegrown video disc standard, with the licensing fees staying inside China. They have a homegrown WiFi security standard instead of WPA, with the licensing fees staying inside China. They require all companies operating in China be Chinese owned (which means at least 51%). Stealing intellectual property from foreigners is widely tolerated and in the case of knockoffs actually legal.
@[why not the LS2LS7?]:
WRONG!!!
The goverment stores a lot of USD and buys a lot of US stock.
All these f**kin shit they do is for GOVERN. Get it, foreigner?
QiFei:
Your answer doesn't make sense.
Buying stock is not the same as buying products from outside the country. When you invest (buying stock), you ideally get it back. The buying USD is just as currency reserves to support the Reminbi. It again, is not the same as purchasing foreign products.
As a China Mobile shareholder, I say "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Hopefully these can be quickly, easily, and cheaply jailbroken and moved on over to other carriers.
Mag42987,
You probably will get killed in China for being too stupid.
This is bad news for Apple. A company not paying monthly kickbacks to Apple is the first sign of weakness in the iPhone wall of success. We've seen the information in other places about how the carriers aren't getting rich off the iPhone, Apple is. This is the first carrier striking back. Will a domino effect begin from this?
It's going to be tough for China Unicom to compete with grey market iPhones given they are just purchasing them and reselling them, the same as all the grey marketeers are.
Who cares. Already have an iPhone 3G.
I wouldn't try anything scandalous in China.
Why not? everyone else does? The principal is anything is essentially legal as long as 1. you know the right people 2. you have enough guanxi, and 3. you don't get caught :)
But what do i know - Qifei will point out I'm just a foreigner, and don't understand Chinese culter and blah blah blah (like 99.9% of people here do?) :)
it remains to be seen how well it will do since those who already wanted one have already gotten it.
And.... Hahaha looks like apple got smacked down by those very enterprising chinese who knew 'revenue' sharing was a bad deal for the carriers. I said before that model was bad, archaic and draconian and the smart carriers would say no. I guess it doesnt help when all major news pieces carried the story that carriers didnt make any money by selling iphones.
I think they will do a modest sale there...well modest in china is a relative term. But apple will see much smaller profit coming out. They are now getting to the point where they will have to start global marketing n competing properly rather than live off the efforts of the caariers.
tbh, the republic of china is probably more democratic than one infinite loop...
Dunno why there are so many posts on the WiFi part.
According to traditional ways of China, if you are not allowed to have WiFi on a piece of gadget, you really don't have it. Hardware modoule ripped off, no sneaky treak to jailbreak or something. Live with that. If you insist on WiFi, try the black market like everyone used to do, or wait for another year when a new WiFi-enabled model is unleashed (there is one on the way, according to ... well, rumors...).
China government could be funny on certain things. Such as my iPaq 210 (rebranded as iPaq 212). It has WiFi, but according to the state regulation, electronic gadgets can absolutely not have A) WiFi B) microphone both at the same time. So all iPaq 212s are shipped without a voice module. Out of frustration I consulted HP, who multiple times confirmed it's hardware removal, so stop dreaming about hack/crack or other similar funny thoughts.
Living in China could be sometimes quiet a pain in the butt.