This is the end of a very long journey for Apple in China. The Cupertino company had been in talks with Chinese wireless providers for two years over the distribution of iPhone in the biggest mobile market in the world. Apple had a chance to make a deal with China Mobile (the company has been said to serve unlocked iPhones by the hundreds of thousands), the biggest of them all, only to end with a much smaller wireless company in Unicom. Perhaps this fact–that iPhone will operate on a non-dominant wireless provider–and the prohibitive price of each legitimate Unicom iPhone unit (unlocked iPhone is HK are much cheaper) that was responsible for the rather embarrassing first day of iPhone in China. A mere 5,000 units sold. After all of Apple’s Herculean effort to get their touchscreen smartphone to be legally distributed to the Chinese, it’s officially a letdown, the iPhone’s first.
[from CNET report, photo: brisbanetimes]
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 pm
[...] the whole story here: Unicom Sell 5,000 iPhone Units on Launch Day – PMP Today Share The [...]
November 4th, 2009 at 1:51 am
the iphone costs a lot more in china than n than in the US. and then if you consider the GDP in china is 10x lower, buying an iphone in china from china unicom is like spending 3000 dollars on a phone. The people who can afford that have already bought unlocked iphones off ebay, or some other source.
Chinese people are good at making hardware, not software. Andriod will be huge in china, because there will be 30- 40 dollar andriod phones, from dozens and dozens of manufacturers.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by hotmind, Wayne Fleury. Wayne Fleury said: Unicom Sell 5000 iPhone Units on Launch Day http://tinyurl.com/yjw3gnm [...]
November 5th, 2009 at 12:22 am
Unicom bring iPhone in China through china telecom, china is one of the biggest market for iPhone and 5000 is one day is still less then my expectation in case of Chinese market.