China Mobile Executive: Apple iPhone Deal Likely After 4G Service Launch
November 15 2011 - 11:15PM
Dow Jones News
China Mobile Ltd. (0941.HK) is still in talks with Apple Inc.
(AAPL) to offer the iPhone in China, but any deal would likely
happen after the company launches next-generation wireless
services, an executive said Wednesday.
"It's more likely that we'll see a deal after our 4G service is
launched," China Mobile Vice President Xin Fanfei said on the
sidelines of the Mobile Asia Congress, a mobile telecommunications
conference.
The iPhone has been available in China since 2009 through the
country's second largest carrier, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd.,
and Apple has created a Chinese version of its App Store. But China
Mobile, the world's largest carrier, has more than 600 million
subscriber accounts, compared with about 200 million at China
Unicom.
Analysts have said the timing for China Mobile to offer the
iPhone partly depends on whether Apple decides to offer the device
for the carrier's homegrown technology standard, TD-SCDMA, or waits
until the carrier rolls out a fourth-generation network called
TD-LTE, which China Mobile has been testing in select cities.
An Apple representative wasn't immediately reachable for
comment.
-By Lorraine Luk, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002;
lorraine.luk@dowjones.com
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