Cellular-enabled iPad mini and 4th-gen iPad certified for sale in China

Chinese network certification for cellular-enabled iPad mini (left) and fourth-gen iPad (right). | Source: TENAA

A filing with China's telecommunications regulation body discovered on Tuesday reveals that Apple has acquired the network licenses needed to start sales of its cellular-enabled iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad.

The Chinese Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center (TENAA) granted Apple two licenses on Dec. 13 for devices carrying the model numbers A1455 and A1460, which are noted on the company's website as being the iPad mini Wi-Fi + Cellular and fourth-generation iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular, respectively.

As noted by Chinese publication Techweb (via The Next Web), the licenses allow the two iPad models to run on China Unicom's WCDMA network as well as China Telecom's CDMA2000 bands.

After announcing a Dec. 7 rollout date for the Chinese market, Apple debuted Wi-FI only versions of the tablets to uncharacteristically small crowds. The company followed up the iPad release with the iPhone 5 on Dec. 14, which saw over two million sales over its first weekend of availability.