Talks with China Mobile fail over who can sell apps

china mobile is right on who can sell more apps. less then 5% of the china population actually have a credit card, the majority of china mobile users are not even on monthly plans, near 80% of the users are on pre-paid. allowing the users to buy apps from their pre-paid account will definitely be easier then getting them to sign up credit card then buy off itunes. not to mention, most of the china mobile users don't even have a computer at home.

either way, china mobile doesn't really care if they sell iphone or not. they already have over 300 million subscriber. apple is the one that really want to get into the market and have a share of the pie

I wonder how they proposed paying the developers the cut of the apps they would sell. I'm not sure I would take their word on how many times my app was sold.

I get that there are some advantages to the asymmetry of TD-SCDMA, but seriously implementing a 3G network in 2009 is a bit ridiculous shouldn't they be focusing on 4G tech like the US and the rest of the world?

well, from what I read in China Mac forum and news site the problem is not only App selling right. China Telecom is currently pushing a new 3G standard TD-SCDMA (iPhone uses WCDMA). China Telecom demanded Apple to add TD-SCDMA into iPhone which turn Apple even further.

This is worse than the demands NTT-DoCoMo had in Japan. What some carriers in other parts of the world need to understand is that Apple actually wants a phone that works EXACTLY the same no matter what region of the world you're in, and making carrier-specific concessions completely degrades this concept.
I think that Apple would be better off partnering with China Unicom and stealing China Mobile's marketshare in the process by having the most-desired tech device in the country on their network.

As a Uk-expat in China, I call BS on China Mobile's motives, same as several other commentators have. Sure, they want a cut (sorry, 100%) of app profits, but moreover they want control - not necessarily censorship, but certainly the full grasp of control.

Apple should just sell it unlocked. There's already an App Store for China (just apps, not a full iTunes store), and enough middle-class/income Chinese can easily pay 600 to 800 bucks for the iPhones, and they already have credit cards (visa, mastercard, mainly) which they can use on the Chinese App Store.

Seems Apple is also too obsessed with having full control, and getting sustained revenue from contracts.

China Mobile should not have control over Apple's App Store for it's customers. For one thing this would take away from the user experience other Apple iPhone customers enjoy as well allow the carrier to censor apps from specific developers because it doesn't meet China's status quo. This demand that the carrier is placing on Apple is just as ridiculous as the one where they wanted Apple to cripple the iPhone 3G to not allow it to use WIFI.

do not give the chinese anything except chop sticks. Nothing.

Ah, China, where everything must be state-controlled.

Apple should just unlock their cell phones and sell it for $599 in China. Enough people will flock to their stores to buy it. The iPhone is like a status symbol in China. Consider that the early adopter paid $1000+ for the 1st iPhone, the public should be happy to get it at $599.

...A source in the Interfax story said that China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou said that buying extras for mobile phones is different for Chinese customers, since many are accustomed to using prepaid credits rather than a credit card. Wang said that China Mobile would have to play some part in providing apps to customers, if only to fulfill this payment scheme....



uh, they can't use itunes cards like everyone else? It's all about the censorship..