China not holding its breath for Apple's iPhone launch

Apple's iPhone will soon go on sale in China, more than two years after its US debut, but it may not make much of a splash, with smuggled units already available, analysts say.

China Unicom late last month announced a multi-year deal to sell the trendy smartphone in the world's largest mobile market of more than 700 million subscribers, starting in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Unicom beat China Mobile to the punch, putting an end to years of on-off negotiations between the US high-tech giant and the world's biggest cell phone operator, but experts say customer excitement has waned during the stalemate.

"You're not likely to see any long lines here," said Zhang Guoren, an editor for CNMO.com, a leading Chinese mobile phone review site.

"They just took too long," said Shaun Rein, head of the Shanghai-based China Market Research Group.

"The iPhone is coming and people don't seem to care much."

Part of the problem is that iPhones have been flooding into China since their US launch, even though Apple was not selling them. Beijing-based high-tech consultancy BDA says more than 1.5 million smuggled handsets are in use here.

Several analysts say they expect the iPhone "gray market" to continue thriving because Apple and China Unicom will – at least initially – sell a stripped-down version without its WiFi function to meet government demands.

During the Apple-Unicom negotiations, Beijing in May agreed to allow mobiles with WiFi if they used the homegrown WAPI standard, allowing Motorola to get a jump on Apple with the launch of its touch-screen Motosurf phone, BDA said.

But China Unicom chairman Chang Xiaobing is optimistic about sales, as most bootleg iPhones available here are 2G models, not the 3G model soon to hit Apple stores.

AFP

Explore the World, Understand China!
Please log on www.gloaltimes.cn