Filed under: Hardware, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone
Apple reportedly sells 5 million iPhones to China Unicom
It appears that China Unicom has been selected as the sole distributor of iPhones in China, according to a report in the International Business Times today. While the deal has yet to be finalized, the company has purchased 5 million WCDMA iPhones without Wi-Fi from Apple at a price of 10 billion yuan (US$1.46 billion). China Unicom is to begin selling the 3G phones in September at company stalls in Carrefour stores, as well as at several large China Unicom retail outlets. The phones are expected to sell for 2,400 yuan (US$352 as of this writing) for an 8GB model and 4,800 yuan (US$704) for a 16GB iPhone. It's estimated that Apple's profit from each sale is about 1,100 yuan (US$161).
China Unicom faces stiff competition from black market iPhones, which are selling for as low as 400 yuan ($59). The International Business Times report notes that Apple made large concessions to China Unicom in order to enter the massive Chinese market. To give some scale to the size of this sale, Apple reported during the 3Q 2009 conference call with Wall Street analysts that they had sold a total of 5.2 million iPhones in the last quarter.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jason Hung said 12:37PM on 8-13-2009
Well, now I guess you will see all the Chinese flocking to Hong Kong to purchase their iPhone 3GSes. Because it's UNLOCKED and has WIFI. Have fun trying to sell your 5 million iPhones.
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MJZimmer88 said 1:42PM on 8-13-2009
Apple was flooding nearby countries with iPhones so the Chinese market could take advantage while they weren't being sold in China. This practice will probably stop now that they just "made concessions" to sell them directly in China...
Jason Hung said 1:46PM on 8-13-2009
You so sure about that? Most of my Chinese friends in China have friends in Hong Kong. You can even order the iPhone 3GS unlocked straight to your home. Visit http://store.apple.com/hk
The fact that a phone costs $352 USD for the 8GB and $704 USD for the 16 GB is insulting for last year's model--don't forget it is still LOCKED to the carrier and has no WiFi. I can get a 32 GB UNLOCKED 3GS straight from the Apple Store for 811 USD from Hong Kong.
johnmc said 12:58PM on 8-13-2009
Before the deluge of "Yeah! CDMA iPhone on Verizon" comments, note that W-CDMA is UMTS, aka the same as AT&T's 3G and not CDMA2000, which is what Verizon uses.
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Alex said 1:00PM on 8-13-2009
I thought it said "Unicorn". I was almost impressed.
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Actionable Mango said 1:26PM on 8-13-2009
I don't understand how a black market iPhone can sell for $59. Did you mean an iPhone knockoff?
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Kelmon said 3:58PM on 8-13-2009
Bugger China - send some damned 3GSs to Belgium. 2 Months now and still no stock. Who the heck is in charge on inventory management?
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Mike Puchol said 4:15PM on 8-13-2009
Agreed with Kelmon - why the f**k are there NO iPhone 3GS in Spain either since launch day??? Why aren't blogs covering this???
Launch day, maybe 5% of stores received a few units. Since then, many of Movistar's own stores have only received 4-5 units TOTAL, what is going on?
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B said 10:37AM on 8-14-2009
woot, free shipping!
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mdejong83 said 7:02PM on 8-13-2009
I wonder for how long are they gonna keep their iPhone wifi free? For sure, when the iPhone arrives here in China I will take a quick peek in the Carrefour store here around the corner of my apartment, but I'm not sure yet if I'm gonna buy one. No wi-fi ... WTF? If they would offer free WCDMA it wouldn't matter, but nothing is for free anymore in these times.
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