Sep 01

China Mobile’s iPhone

Those of you who already became regular readers(if you're not one of them, you can simply subscribe to our news by email to get'em all) of BindApple surely know my affinity for China. On the other hand, I also should add that, while I admire China for showing the entire world that Communism does work, I wouldn't live there. Why? For the same reason - China also managed to show an entire planet that, despite all its promises, Communism is still Communism... but at least they'll soon be the first Communist country with the iPhone officially available, as far as I can tell, and that's something really big!

Why am I saying this? Just think about the idea - one of the new symbols of the Western world, the iPhone, and one of the leading companies of this world, inside a Communist stronghold like China! Well, maybe "Communist stronghold" is not quite rigt, since most of the gadgets around are manufactured there, but still...

Making a longer story short, here's the deal - China Mobile seems to be ready to subsidized the iphone, according to the JLM Pacific Epoch!

To spare you one click, here's what the article says: "China Mobile (NYSE: CHL, 941.HK) and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) have decided to rely upon handset subsidies to bring Apple's iPhone to China, reports China Communications quoting an insider close to China Mobile. The would-be mobile partners are nearing the end of talks that aim to avoid passing on the relatively high price of iPhones to Chinese consumers by having Mobile subsidize the phones, said the insider. The new plan is intended to replace revenue sharing models that left earlier talks at a stalemate. China Mobile president Wang Jianzhou initially revealed iPhone negotiations in November, 2007."

Unfortunately, "an insider close to China Mobile" doesn't sound really official, but we should rely on this, because it's all we got, at least for now. Until this moment, Apple tried to bring the iPhone to China more than just once, but previous talks failed, when reaching the "revenue sharing" part.

All in all, it seems things are getting closer to the conclusion now, and Chinese people may be able to get the real iPhone 3G by this year's end, but...how many of them will have enough money to afford the phone and the service plans coming with it, and how many of those don't have a Chinese clone already, or a jailbroken Apple iPhone?