Игры и программы для телефона

After months of speculations, Apple iPhone 3G S is about to make its “official” entry in the Chinese market, following China Unicom's announcement of a three-year deal with Apple to sell the watershed device in China in 4Q. Through this deal, and while Apple is set to face several issues in the coming months, the giant tech company is set to make a big splash in the Chinese market, which has become the largest handset market in the world, with 670 million+ wireless subscribers, according to the Ministry of Information Industry.

1.Two iPhone models set to be available, but no Wi-Fi allowed. China Unicom allegedly plans to offer two iPhone 3G S models at a higher price than in the U.S.: The 16GB iPhone version for $702 and the 8GB version for $351. Apparently, China Unicom paid Apple $292 per unit for both models. Of note, a two-year service contract is required for both models. Interestingly, while China has an extensive Wi-Fi network, Wi-Fi will probably be disabled on the iPhone 3G S. For the Chinese market, Apple created a special version (A1324 model) of the iPhone, which can support GSM, GPRS, EDGE, and W-CMDA. Apple has made significant concessions to get this deal done as it also agreed to drop its traditional revenue-sharing model. Chinese Unicom will apparently pay Apple based on the number of iPhones sold. On the other hand, China Unicom, which already pre-ordered 5 million iPhones, has allegedly guaranteed to sell up to 2 million iPhones a year, representing potential sales of at least ($730 Million) for Apple, according to TMT China.

2. Chinese Market presents huge revenue opportunity for Apple, driven by high-income wireless subscribers. China being home to more millionaires (364k) than the UK, according to the latest World Wealth Report, the Apple iPhone 3G S is likely to appeal to many high-income Chinese customers. I was told one day that there were about 200 million Chinese whose income is equivalent to the one of most middle-class Americans. Granted, the iPhone will be out of reach to most Chinese, but the potential demand is clearly there. With 22 million iPhones sold worldwide, the Chinese market, which is now moving full speed toward 3G, presents tremendous opportunities for Apple. So far, the iPhone 3G S has only been shipped in 18 countries. China Unicom, which is scheduled to roll out its 3G network on Sept. 28, plans to have 6.5 million iPhone users by February, which would represent ~5% of its existing customer base of 140 million wireless subscribers. By comparison, two years after the launch of the iPhone in the U.S, the iPhone represents 11% of AT&T's customer base. Granted, China Unicom has almost twice has many wireless subscribers as AT&T, which is a big help, but this demonstrates the tremendous growth potential of the iPhone in China.

3. China Mobile was probably Apple's first choice, just like Verizon was Apple's first choice two years ago for the U.S market. I truly believe that Apple wanted to sign an exclusive contract with China Mobile for the iPhone based on the carrier's large customer base (457 million subs for China Mobile vs. only 140 million subs for China Unicom). Quite frankly, this situation reminds me of what happened a few years ago in the U.S. when Apple came to Verizon to offer the iPhone to the carrier.

In order to win the deal, China Unicom has agreed to let Apple pre-install iTunes on the iPhone, a condition China Mobile would not accept, according to the Shanghai Securities News. Like Verizon, China Mobile probably wanted to keep control of its distribution channel, which probably conflicted with Apple's own agenda. China Unicom is allegedly discussing nationwide iPhone distribution with several Chinese retailers, which seems to indicate that Apple will be selling the iPhone through its own Apple stores and China Unicom's resellers. But most importantly, China Mobile will allow Apple's competing mobile app stores to run on its network, which is something that Apple was probably not happy about. In my opinion, both parties soon realized that it was not going to work out. Apple quickly turned to plan B (China Unicom), and so did China Mobile. There were just too many conflicts of interest between the two giant companies at the moment. In fact, according to TMT China, the discussions between both parties have been over for two months. In my opinion, China Unicom's three-year exclusive deal with Apple was a big blow to China Mobile based on China Mobile's dominance in the Chinese market and current momentum. However, Apple, which is progressively changing its model from exclusive carrier deals to multiple carrier deals within each country, according to a report from Piper Jaffray, already confirmed that its deal with China Unicom was not an exclusive one. So an iPhone deal between China Mobile and Apple might still be possible in the coming years.

4. But competition is set to be fierce in the coming months.