China Mobile is the T-Mobile of the East with 10 million iPhone users, an incompatible high speed network and no contract

Seth Weintraub

China Mobile doesn’t officially offer the iPhone yet. But it is carrying 10 Million iPhones on its network according to Reuters.

“We have not yet got agreement with Apple,” Wang said on the fringes of the ITU World telecoms fair in Geneva. “Apple promised to provide, when they develop the iPhone for LTE, that it will include TD-LTE. We are discussing the details.”

There had been rumors that Apple would offer a TL-LTE version of the iPhone 4S earlier this year with China Mobile going as far as saying:

China Mobile and Apple hope to find a solution for close collaboration. We discussed this issue with Apple. We hope Apple will produce a new iPhone with TD-LTE. We have already got a positive answer from Apple.

It appears that positive answer wasn’t for this round of devices, though the CDMA Verizon iPhone arrived off schedule in January. TD-LTE will require some separate chips which could be hard to fit inside the iPhone 4S’s enclosure. Apple however has to look longingly at that 600 million+ subscriber base, however.

While T-Mobile USA is on the opposite end of the subscriber spectrum (China Mobile has around the same amount of subscribers as the populations of Europe and the US combined), T-Mobile is the #4 carrier in the US in the midst of AT&T attempting to swallow it.

But they both don’t officially offer the iPhone, yet have a significant number of iPhones floating around on their network. Both offer a different type of high speed 4G network that stock iPhone 4Ses can’t take advantage of. Both networks do offer EDGE/GSM speeds however which some may find valuable tied with reduced fees or better coverage. T-Mobile told us earlier this year that they had over a million iPhones on their network, a figure that is likely to go up with Apple sneakily offering iPhones 4S unlocked at launch.

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China Mobile had secret iPhone meetings with Steve Jobs

9to5 Staff

Reuters reported this morning that top brass from China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier by both subscribers and market valuation, and Apple’s head honcho Steve Jobs met “several times on introducing an iPhone based on its network standard”. Did Jobs travel incognito or was he accompanying Apple’s operations wizard Tim Cook during his China tour (snapped paparazzi-style in the shot below)?

More likely, Jobs probably hosted China Mobile reps in Cupertino.

Interestingly, China Mobile counts a cool 7.44 million iPhone users on its network, although it doesn’t carry the handset yet and iPhone users cannot tap 3G speeds on their TD-SCDMA 3G network.

Apple’s been alleged previously as wanting to release an iPhone optimized for China Mobile’s fourth-generation TD-LTE network. The Wall Street Journal chimed in with sources saying the gadget maker and China Mobile are close to cutting a deal set to open up the carrier’s 600+ million subscribers to Apple’s phone. The highest-level meeting isn’t surprising considering that Apple is only “scratching surface” in China, having reported in the June quarter a sixfold growth in the country for a total of $3.8B in revenues from operations in the country.

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‘Apple is only scratching the surface in China’ with 6X growth and $3.8B quarter?

Seth Weintraub


Apple’s beautiful Bejing Retail Store

Apple felt incredibly bullish on China in today’s conference call, rattling off numbers that even Tim Cook admitted they wouldn’t have believed if they had been told a year ago.  How big is China for Apple?

In the year ago quarter, Apple counted $630 Million in revenues from China.  Today, Apple grew that by a factor of six to $3.8B of the total $28+B of their total revenues for the quarter.  That’s 13.3% of Apple’s total business by revenue which now comes from China.

To put that in perspective, $3.8B would have been over two-thirds of Apple’s 2007 (iPhone release) same quarter revenue and more than Apple’s whole global revenue for June ’05.

But ‘we’re only scratching the surface’.

Cook talked again about pre-paid phones (which are dominant in China) and a deal with the 600M-user China Mobile which is said to be in the wings.  Apple is also said to be exploring a cheaper iPhone offering which would appeal to a much broader swath of the Chinese market (Indian too).  This comes against a backdrop of Google Chairmen Eric Schmidt who is also bullish on Asia for Android.

Apple is also being aggressive in their China retail stores, choosing to open larger flagship stores which take more time to build.  CFO Peter Oppenheimer mentioned that the Hong Kong Flagship store at the IFC would be opening this quarter.  But Apple has an order of magnitude more stores opening up across China.  Apple now sells through four stores.  They have over 30 planned just for the next year.

If Apple’s growth in China stays on the current pace, which ‘scratching the surface’ seems to at least partially imply, China will account for over $20B in revenue at this time next year – which could start approach Apple’s US revenues even if Apple continues to grow globally as it has.

Below is an edited transcript of Cook’s remarks on China from Macworld: Read more

AAPL hits all-time high ahead of earnings tomorrow, approaches $350B market cap

Cleve Nettles

As Apple gears up to announce earnings tomorrow after the bell, the stock has hit an all time high each of the last two trading sessions.  Today AAPL is up about 2.5% to just north of $373. Market cap is now just shy of and incredible $350B. (Exxon is at $409B)  Great earnings are expected from AAPL as tech has found a footing following Google’s quarterly results last week that shot the stock up over 12%.

In addition to expected stellar earnings, news that Apple is close to inking a deal with China Mobile has given the iPhone maker a boost. This deal would potentially give Apple access to China Mobile’s 600m subscriber base. Stay tuned tomorrow for the exact earnings release.

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WSJ: China Mobile “getting closer” to deal that will make iPhone available to 600 million subscribers

Mark Gurman

Without revealing too many new details, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple and China Mobile are “getting closer” to the seemingly elusive China Mobile iPhone deal. China Mobile is the mainland’s largest carrier with over 600 million subscribers (that’s about the equiv. of the US+European populations). The report also confirms that it was, in fact, Tim Cook who was spotted at China Mobile‘s headquarters in mid-June.

China Mobile references in the iOS SDK – Thanks, Sonny Dickson!

The WSJ also discusses the price of the current iPhone models in context with the average salaries for China households:

The iPhone, which currently sells for between 3,999 and 5,999 yuan without contract, would be a luxury for many Chinese consumers. The average household income in the first half of 2011 was 12,076 yuan, according to China’s national statistics bureau.

With this fact in mind, it makes sense for Apple to build and sell a more economical iPhone. The report is not specific about when this China Mobile iPhone will launch and China Mobile has already confirmed that talks with Apple over carrying the iPhone are ongoing. Be sure to check out the WSJ’s explanation of the “exclusive” in the video above.

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