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China Unicom offers $10 monthly iPhone plan amid stiff competition

by Kelly Hodgkins May 25th 2011 at 12:00PM

China Unicom is trying to grab additional customers before its exclusivity with the iPhone ends. The wireless carrier is kicking off a new promotion that drops the price on its lowest iPhone plan to a rock bottom 66 yuan (US$10) a month.

Right now, its larger rivals China Mobile and China Telecom do not sell the iPhone with a service contract, but may do so in the near future. Both carriers are rumored to be in talks with Apple to bring the iPhone to their respective networks.

There is little doubt that Apple would like to get the iPhone into the hands of as many people as possible, especially in China where over 900 million people use a mobile phone. Quarterly results also show iPhone sales are exploding in this Asian-Pacific region, and Apple surely wants to capitalize on its early success.



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China Unicom is trying to grab additional customers before its exclusivity with the iPhone ends. The wireless carrier is kicking off a...
 

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Yuusharo

Simple question... when was the last time you heard of *any* US wireless carrier offer any new plans "amid stiff competition?" Let's take a look at their history:

-One carrier begins to charge for *incoming* text messages, the others all follow.
-One carrier raises text message rates to $0.20 per text, the others all follow.
-One carrier begins capping data plans, the others (almost) all follow.

Anyone want to bet how long before Sprint starts imposing data caps on their "premium" data service?

May 25 2011 at 3:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Yuusharo's comment
Fred

Prepaid wireless offers competitive pricing.

May 25 2011 at 5:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
numble

Oh, and that plan works anywhere inside Mainland China, to answer your roaming question.

May 25 2011 at 1:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
numble

@Tom
220 mb data, 160 voice minutes, 50 text messages.
http://iphone.10010.com/buy/

May 25 2011 at 1:07 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to numble's comment
Thomas Platt

Thank you numble, how very helpful. It is a rather sparse plan then, isn't it? Still, the whole thing is less than the 200mb data option with AT&T, so not an entirely bad deal by comparison. Though I must qualify that statement by adding that I don't think the tiered iPhone plans are a good deal at all, to begin with. Had I not purchased mine prior to the unlimited data phase-out, I probably never would have gotten an iPhone (or cellphone at all, for that matter). I'm very happy to be grandfathered in.

May 25 2011 at 1:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
XP84

Note to AT&T and other carriers who love to say how "competitive" our market is. This sounds a lot more like competition than the price-fixing oligopoly (soon to be duopoly) we are stuck with here. When was the last time you saw one of our carriers besides Sprint CUT prices on service?

May 25 2011 at 12:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to XP84's comment
SophT

Which is funny because Unicom, Telecom, and Mobile are all owned by the governemtn.

May 26 2011 at 7:54 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Thomas Platt

Ten dollars a month is very nice, but what does it include? How many minutes talk time, how much data usage, is long distance and roaming included? Without these "minor details" we have absolutely nothing to compare this to. The article tells us nothing at all.

May 25 2011 at 12:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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