China Unicom orders 5 million iPhones
In what could be defined as a clash of Chinese mobile network titans, China Unicom has apparently gotten the ball rolling in a big way by ordering 5 million iPhones from Apple.
The 5-million handset order has apparently been placed and accepted by Apple. The order is for the iPhone W-CDMA handset, reported earlier and customized for Chinese use. Most of that customization has to do with the removal of the iPhone’s Wi-Fi feature, a rather firm request from the Chinese government aimed at maintaining control over Internet usage by the Chinese people.
The monetary size of this gigantic order is said to be 10 billion yuan, or 1.5 billion dollars. Doing the math (though ignoring most of those pesky zeros) that make the cost of the average single iPhone in the order $300, indicationg that they are mainly 8GB units. The battle of the Chinese cell phone providers is between China Unicom, who is in second place, and China Mobile, who is the clear leader according to a Business Week story. By cutting a deal with Apple, China Unicom hopes to win the battle of the young, trendy mobile phone demographic, and thus perhaps to overtake the market leader on the back of the iPhone.
A spokesman for the Guangdong division of the company has been reported as saying that China Unicom will begin selling the units next month, using kiosks in supermarkets, as well as other service outlets. Having purchased the phones for about $300, the Chinese mobile provider plans to sell each at a small profit. Apparently, the Chinese company plans to sell the 16GB version for exactly twice as much as the 8GB version. The same spokesman that confirmed the deal said that his company will consider giving away the phone to consumers that prepay for an unspecified, but presumably large, amount of service.
Given the number of possible users in the Chinese marketplace, this order for 5 million phones may just be the tip of the iceberg of iPhone sales there. If the popular handset strikes the same chord in Chinese consumers that it has with those in other countries, it is not hard to foresee a time when more iPhones will be sold in China than all other markets combined, excellent news for the U.S. Side in the Chinese-American balance of trade.
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