iPhone sales soar in China

First (as discussed elsewhere), the 1.3 billion number I represents total Apple sales (including computers, iPods, iTouches and iPads). Second, the term Greater China seems to skirt a key issue - how many iPhones did Apple sell to mainland China (as opposed to Taiwan & Hong Kong) ?

You should also realize that putting in a "WAPI" cheap instead of a "802.11" chip and writing a driver for it -- and I'm pretty sure the standard is very, very similar to 802.11, since most Chinese technologies are knock-offs or at least based on, existing technologies (such as their MIPS CPUs...) is not the same thing as using a completely different baseband/radio chip, writing firmware for it, tying it into your OS (GPS, activation, lock/unlock, signal logic, power concerns) and designing the required antennas and internal layout to support them are not the same thing. You don't "resdesign" the iPhone for WAPI, but you probably do for CDMA.

As many dollars as China has people!

Lynyrd, actually it makes sense that Apple has held off on creating a CDMA iPhone. Believe me, nobody would like to see the iPhone on "Big Red" as much as I would. But since they're going to be switching over to LTE (commonly referred to as 4G) it would make more sense from a business standpoint to invest in a technology platform that has many years, possibly decades, ahead of it. As opposed to CDMA, which from all I've read, will be effectively phased out between the next 3-5 years.

In terms of why Apple completely re-designed the iPhone for the Chinese market...two words...growth prospects. The U.S. is essentially a saturated and mature cell market. Nearly everyone that wants one has one (a cell phone, not necessarily an iPhone). Whereas China is a rapidly-growing consumer market with LOTS of upside growth potential. Add to that the Chinese government's bureaucratic and often inscrutable regulatory process, and Apple probably decided it was better to re-design the iPhone and seize the opportunity to get into the market, rather than taking the chance and hoping that the government would change its cellular standards to meet the iPhone. Just my $0.02.

So wait let me get this straight, apple was willing to completely redesign the iphone to use proprietary standars to sell it to a country with a low demand for high-end phone but they weren't willing to make a cdma iphone for a network and a country that has been begging for it for years. Ok apple you really do think differently.