Mobile phone operator, China Unicom, has signed a 3-year deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to China. The first iPhones will ship sometime in the fourth quarter this year according to TechCrunch. Both the iPhone and the iPhone 3GS will be launched in China this year. Interestingly, the iPhones being sold in China will not have WiFi functionality. This has been one bone of contention between Apple and Chinese carriers. China Unicom has not announced their pricing for the iPhone or what their service plans will be, however, according to The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese carrier plans to keep the price down by offering subsidies to customers.
According to Yahoo News, the iPhone is likely to be priced from 2,999 yuan (439 dollars) with a requirement that the users also buy 3,000 yuan worth of pre-paid calls. Nothing is official as yet.
The only part of the deal which is not sorted out is how and whether revenue from the App Store should be shared. The deal does not involve revenue sharing with Apple according to China Daily.
The launch of the iPhone will be a boost for China, which is the worlds largest mobile phone market, and will definitely help China Unicom gain some market share from China Mobile. China Unicom also said that its 3G network will launch commercially on September 28th ,according to Bloomberg, as it enters the world's largest wireless market. With the Apple iPhone already released in 80 countries it seems that China was the last missing piece to the iPhone story.
Basically it works on 2 levels, first you have to sign a contract (I called Netcom today, they're still claiming 24 months on the ￥186 package, which is a combination of their ￥120 package with some extra addons) and if it's the same as China Mobile, they'll also make you pay a substantial amount up front, which can also be used for your phone bill along the way.
As for the commitment up front, it's pretty standard in China. I paid around the same amount for deposit when I signed up to China Mobile's Go Tone (Their premium contact service). Even for normal users (eg. M-Zone) if they want to enable international calling on their phone, it was a ￥800 deposit.
As for the competition, while the contract is not exclusive, China Mobile currently has Mmarket, which is their mobile market (very crap when I checked on release) and they are also focusing on oPhone, which is based on their own software called OMS. At the launch event last week, they showcased oPhones from Philips, LG, Lenovo, Dopod, Dell and a couple others so the chances of them picking up the iPhone as well is rather small.
Oh my, isn't this quite a large blow? And there's no WAPI (China's "WiFi" equivalent) functionality as well Data services don't come very cheap.
2) No wifi? I'm really getting peeved with carriers that are disabling this... *grumble*
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