Apple signs iPhone deal with China's largest phone company

[News_Editor]

BEIJING, CHINA (BNO NEWS) -- U.S. technology giant Apple has signed a deal with China Mobile, the world's largest phone company by subscribers, to bring the iPhone 5 to customers in a market dominated by cheaper rival phones from Samsung and domestic developers, the companies announced on Monday.

As part of the multi-year agreement, iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c will be available from China Mobile's expansive network of retail stores across mainland China beginning on January 17. Customers are already able to pre-register on the website of China Mobile, which has more than 763 million customers, making it the world's biggest cellular communications company.

"Apple's iPhone is very much loved by millions of customers around the world. We know there are many China Mobile customers and potential new customers who are anxiously awaiting the incredible combination of iPhone on China Mobile's leading network," said China Mobile Chairman Xi Guohua. "We are delighted that iPhone on China Mobile will support our 4G/TD-LTE and 3G/TD-SCDMA networks, providing customers with high-speed mobile service."

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the California-based company has "enormous respect" for China Mobile and said they are excited to begin working together. "China is an extremely important market for Apple and our partnership with China Mobile presents us the opportunity to bring iPhone to the customers of the world's largest network," he said.

Details about the pricing and availability of iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c for China Mobile were not immediately made available.

The deal with China Mobile is likely to boost Apple's global sales in the short run and give the iPhone a big lift into the vast Chinese market that is dominated by low-cost Android smartphones. China's three bestselling smartphone markers are Samsung, Lenovo and Coolpad, according to a recent report by market intelligence provider International Data Corporation (IDC).

"The sharp increase in shipments of low-end China Mobile smartphones has driven the growth of Lenovo and Coolpad," IDC China analyst James Yan said in September. "Affected by the sluggish sales of iPhone 5, Apple's market share has declined dramatically [in China], but its performance is expected to remarkably improve with the launch of the new iPhone."

With the issuance of 4G licenses and the launch of Apple's new iPhones by China Mobile, IDC expects China's smartphone shipments to exceed 450 million in 2014, including 120 million smartphones that support 4G functions and over 32 million smartphones that will adopt China Mobile's TD-LTE air interface.

(Copyright 2013 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: [email protected].)

[Publicus]

China Mobile is a joke in the wireless communications market in the CCP-PRC. In fact the whole thing is a joke.

China Mobile has 61% of market share in the CCP-PRC but barely managed a 1% growth of its measly profits the first half of the year. The primary reason for the contradiction is that China Mobile charges its subscribers a pittance for its services, if it does charge them. China Mobile only wants to dominate market share, no matter what the cost. The Chinese you see are impressed by large numbers.

The other two of the big three major service providers in the CCP-PRC already had made deals with Apple, so this deal with China Mobile gives Apple a lock on the PRC wireless phone market.

China Unicom signed with Apple in 2009 and China Telecom signed up in 2012. The three have almost all the CCP-PRC phone market. So at last China Mobile has collapsed over the finish line with its deal with Apple, six years in the making.

Apple now dominates the wireless phone market in the CCP-PRC. China Mobile just got fleeced. China Mobile getting fleeced by Apple also fleeces China Telecom and China Unicom, which are hardly global business models anyway.

When I was living and working in the CCP-PRC I subscribed to China Mobile because it cost almost nothing and the service was reliable.

China Mobile some time ago initiated a "short number" group calling system. The system allowed people to form a group of subscribers who were assigned a five digit number we used to call each other for free.

We called anyone In the group for free, anytime, all the time. If one of us travelled a thousand miles across the CCP-PRC, any one of us could call from our own area on the short number for no charge. So we'd talk for hours. Locally we used the short number system all the time. Four years and I never paid China Mobile a dime for services.

So before too long China Mobile discovered it was losing staggeringly enormous bucks on their ingenious call all your friends for free anytime all the time short number promotion.

However, when China Mobile tried to cancel the short number system PRChinese from Shanghai in the northeast to Guilin in the southwest howled, which left China Mobile stuck providing almost all the calling services of several hundred million subscribers for free, indefinitely. That remains the case to this day I'm advised by members of my China Mobile former call group from when I spent 4 years in the CCP-PRC (until 2011).

Nothing like those free socialist air waves, I always say.

Until it all comes crashing down.

Soon.

Very soon.

Edited December 23, 2013 by Publicus