China Mobile revealed the meetings with Jobs during a news conference regarding its earnings for the first half of 2011, according to Reuters. Jobs has reportedly met with executives from the carrier "several times," and wishes to introduce an iPhone based on China Mobile's network standard.
Officials with China Mobile also reportedly revealed that 7.44 million iPhones are used on its network, despite the fact that the iPhone is not officially available to its customers.
Users who operate an iPhone on China Mobile's network cannot access high-speed 3G, because it uses its own TDSCDMA standard. The iPhone, in its current form, does not support that standard, leaving users who use an iPhone with China Mobile operating at much slower 2G speeds.
The news that Jobs himself has met with China Mobile officials comes a few months after Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was rumored to have been spotted at the carrier's corporate headquarters. Rumors of a deal between Apple and China Mobile have persisted for some time.
While those rumors have lingered, no official has been announced. Earlier this month, it was claimed once again that the two sides had come to a deal. That rumor suggested the iPhone 4 would be officially sold to China Mobile's customers by the end of October.
Further supporting the latest rumors of an impending deal between the two parties, last month AppleInsider uncovered an unverified photo that appears to show an iPhone 4 running on China Mobile's 3G network.
China has been an important piece of Apple's growth in recent months, amounting to $9 billion alone this year. That trend is expected to continue upward, with China's smartphone market predicted to be worth $70 billion total.
20 Comments
With over 620,000,000 subscribers 1% penetration of a GSM/TD-SCDMA iPhone would be 6.2 million units. That seems too great an opportunity to pass up.
With over 620,000,000 subscribers 1% penetration of a GSM/TD-SCDMA iPhone would be 6.2 million units. That seems too great an opportunity to pass up.
This would be huge, even for Apple.
My business isn't anywhere near that size but if I was going to do a deal which opened up access to a customer base of that size I think I'd expect the CEO of the supplier to turn up to a few meetings!
Just underscores how important chinese population is. With the stagnation in US, China looks like one of the few places expected to grow in the near future. In fact all they need is just 30% of their population to live as well as the US they have 300M potential customers. If they can get 70%, they would be the size of Europe and US combined.
Any large company shut out of that kind of market stands to loose big. Surprisingly Android actually has an upper hand, even though their leadership is never really seen in china (at least I haven't heard about them traveling there), because a lot of asian manufacturers simply adopt android and ship their own, compatible hardware.
Does anyone know whether iOS or Android is the majority in China currently?
The news that Jobs himself has met with China Mobile officials comes a few months after Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was rumored to have been spotted at the carrier's corporate headquarters.
Maybe they don't realize that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs?
We all probably look the same to them.