China Mobile has started accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 6. Yes, the one that hasn’t been announced yet. Apparently people are excited to finally get a chance to pre-order a phone they know nothing about, too, given that over 33,000 have reportedly already taken advantage of the offer.

The carrier is offering both the 4.7″ and the 5.5″ models in 16, 32, and 64 GB. Nobody who has ordered the phone actually knows when they’ll get it, given that—much like the handset itself—the release date hasn’t been announced yet.

The iPhone 6 will officially be announced next week, probably alongside a preview of a wearable device of some sort, at an Apple media event.

Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair has suggested that Apple’s share price could be temporarily depressed by disappointing Q2 results in March before climbing by as much as 20 percent in response to new products in the fall, reports Barrons.

This gap between what is actually happening at Apple and investor sentiment is providing an opportunity for investors. We believe this opportunity should be taken advantage of before Apple’s next array of products hit the market, though the best time to own the stock may be in April after we get the March quarter/June guide behind us.

Blair cites several factors for expecting the stock to take a hit in March when Apple reports its earnings for its Q2 fiscal year (Q1 calendar year). Among them are the general slowdown in the saturated high-end smartphone market, continued soft demand for the iPhone 5c, overly-optimistic market forecasts for China Mobile sales and a reduction in the number of people upgrading their iPhone as they wait for the rumored larger-screen phone(s) in the fall.

The longer-term outlook is, however, excellent, believes Blair. He expects Touch ID to be rolled out across all iPhones and iPads in readiness for the launch of a mobile payment solution, and he thinks the expected larger iPhone 6 will sell well, especially in Asia.

In terms of completely new products, Blair is predicting the launch of the iWatch in September and a 12-inch display device he expects to see unveiled at WWDC, whether it is the much-rumored iPad Pro or a new 12-inch MacBook Air.

As ever, make your own decisions where investments are concerned …

Via CNET

Tim Cook during the China Mobile launch earlier this year

Amid Apple’s push to expand its presence in China with its new deal with China Mobile, AFP reports Apple is suing the State Intellectual Property Office in China as well as Zhizhen Network Technology.

The dispute is not a new one as Zhizhen Network Technology previously sued Apple over disputes with Siri and its Xiao i Robot product, but this time the roles are reversed. Furthermore, Apple is filing suit against the patent office responsible for protecting patent rights after the agency declined to invalidate Zhizhen’s patent, according to the report.

The case will be heard on Thursday by the Beijing Number one Intermediate People’s Court, but no ruling has been announced for the case heard last July yet, so we it may be some time before this concludes.

While smartphone growth is slowing in China, Apple managed to increase its market share from 6 to 7 percent in the final quarter of 2013, even before the China Mobile deal was struck. IDC figures reported by the WSJ show that Apple is now the fifth largest smartphone seller in the country, behind Samsung, Lenovo, Coolpad and Huawei. Xiaomi sits just behind Apple at 6 percent.

Apple’s share is likely to increase significantly in the current quarter, thanks to finally being sold through China’s largest carrier, China Mobile. The carrier has more than 760M subscribers, and analysts have estimated that the deal will generate between 15M and 30M additional iPhone sales in the course of 2014.

iPhone sales in Russia, meantime, doubled to 1.57M units with a total value of $1B, reports Bloomberg. Apple had struggled to persuade Russian carriers to sell the iPhone due to its high price and laws that forbid carriers from discounting up-front prices in return for signing up to lengthy contracts. After selling through electronics stores, however, three Russian carriers resumed selling iPhones within the past few months.

The so-called BRIC markets – Brazil, Russia, India and China – are of huge importance to Apple now that the U.S. and Europe have reached saturation point. While Apple will never compete in market share with the low-end Android handsets available in these markets, there is still significant growth potential at the high end. In an earlier WSJ interview, Tim Cook said:

I look at the mobile phone market as having three kinds of phones: feature phones, smartphones that function as or are used as feature phones, and real smartphones. I do care about the market share of the last category and you want to be relevant.

The importance of the BRIC markets was illustrated when it was revealed that Apple’s Asian sales had outstripped those of Europe even by Q1 of last year. Next quarter’s China numbers are going to make very interesting reading.

Apple’s efforts to secure the China Mobile deal were long, drawn out and likely involved rather more negotiation than the company is used to. But if you ever had any doubts as to the importance of those efforts in China, Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, the above two charts, compiled by Fortune, make the reason very clear.

The bad news for Apple is that revenue from its two biggest segments — Europe and the Americas — have begun to contract, not just as a percentage of total revenue, but in dollar terms as well. The good news is that Japan, Asia Pacific and Greater China have so far more than taken up the slack. In Q1 2014, Apple’s combined Asian sales were $17.4 billion, more than Europe ($13 billion) and closing in on the Americas ($20 billion).

As we mentioned earlier this month, Apple is scheduled to hold a conference call to discuss its earnings and sales figures from the previous quarter it reported today: including 51 million iPhones, 26 million iPads, and 4.8 million Macs. The company also reported $57.6 billion in revenue for the previous quarter. We’ll be listening in on the conference call and updating you on key developments as they play out, so follow along at 5pm EST.

Ahead of the launch of the iPhone on China Mobile on January 17th, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with the Wall Street Journal and other publications for a brief interview. Cook hints that this iPhone deal is only the beginning of a longer-term partnership between Apple and China’s largest mobile carrier:

Speaking in a small media briefing to Chinese media and The Wall Street Journal, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said he is “incredibly optimistic” about the outcome of the cooperation with the Chinese carrier.

“We’ve gotten to know each other….today is a beginning, and I think there are lots more things our companies can do together in the future,” Mr. Cook said.

Cook is likely referring to future generations of the iPhone, and other products such as the iPad, appearing on China Mobile’s network in the future. Cook also shares that half a million of the App Store developers are from China:

Mr. Cook said Apple wants to reach as many Chinese consumers as possible by offering iPhones through China Mobile, and added that the country has more than half a million people writing apps for the U.S. company’s iOS operating system.

“Apple has always been about making the best products, not the most products, so that’s always our North Star and that’s not going to change ever,” said Mr. Cook.

“Multi-millions” of iPhones have already been pre-ordered through China Mobile, according to a statement from China Mobile’s Chairman in the same interview. Earlier today, the WSJ reported that over one million iPhone 5s units were shipped from Foxconn to China Mobile. 

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has shipped approximately 1.4 million iPhone 5S units to China Mobile in preparation of the carrier’s iPhone launch on Jan. 17. The report notes it likely doesn’t present sales for the full month of January with preorders having kicked off under three weeks ago, but it is a good indication of how many new iPhone customers Apple could potentially get on a monthly basis through the deal:

“Shipping one million or more iPhones to a single carrier per month is substantial. But we have limited visibility beyond this month as Apple hasn’t informed Foxconn of  the volume for the next shipment to China Mobile,” said the person.

Apple finally made things official last month when it announced in a press release that it had struck a deal with China Mobile to begin selling the iPhone 5s and 5c, marking the first time the iPhone would be sold through the carrier’s retail stores. China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier with over 760 million subscribers, started taking preorders for the device on December 25 following Apple’s announcement. No word on estimates for iPhone 5c shipments, but China Mobile is set to begin selling that device too starting Friday.

Well Fargo has downgraded AAPL stock from ‘outperform’ to ‘market perform,’ citing the fact that the company’s gross margins have typically fallen 2.25 percent in the two quarters following the launch of a brand new iPhone model (rather than an S upgrade).

Our bullish thesis on Apple had been predicated on the expectation for gross margin (GM) expansion driven by the 5s cycle. While we still have conviction in the gross margin thesis (and the potential for iPad/iPhone unit upside), we believe this may be largely embedded into the valuation.

The bank has not changed its valuation range of $536 to $581, though is presumably now expecting something toward the lower end of the range.

Wells Fargo’s Maynard Um said that he also believed the balance of power may be shifting away from Apple to the carriers as they shift away from subsidized deals (read: disguised loans) to higher up-front costs and/or separate phone financing.

Apple and China Mobile appear to be taking their newly established partnership and marketing it proudly as the Chinese service provider has devoted a majority of one of its retail locations to the iPhone and iPad line.

PRC and Me shared several photos taken at the retail location showing several ads and marketing material dedicated to the Apple products in a store once dominated by Samsung and other Android handsets.