Since October 30

Dec 10, 2009 11:49 GMT  ·  By

Apple's iPhone, the hottest mobile phone on the market at the moment, has recently reached two major Asian markets, China and South Korea. In China, the iPhone is being sold by China Unicom Ltd., which announced on Thursday that it managed to sell a number of 100,000 iPhones since the handset's debut on its airwaves on October 30, this year.

China is the largest market in the world when it comes to the number of mobile phone subscribers, and the performance of the iPhone in the country does not look promising at all. For comparison, Apple managed to sell hundreds of thousands of units in other markets in just a couple of days or in a matter of hours after launching the iPhone in those countries.

On the other hand, the number shows that users are starting to pick up the Apple device, as China Unicom announced on November 3 that it sold only 5,000 units during the first four days of availability. “iPhone sales have been disappointing,” said Paul Wuh, an analyst covering China Unicom for Samsung Securities. “For China Unicom, with 144 million subscribers, 100,000 iPhone users aren't going to do anything for their revenue.”

According to Dow Jones Newswire, one of the main causes for iPhone's poor performance in the country is its rather leveraged price tag. The cost of the device ranges from $730 to $1,020, with no discounts or services included. At the same time, the handset has also reached the gray market in China, and it is being sold for considerably less, with a number of 2 million Chinese users estimated to have already purchased it this way.

On the other hand, China Unicom might still have a lot to gain from the large number of iPhone users in the country. Its network is the only one compatible with the handset's 3G connectivity options, and they are likely to switch to the carrier to enjoy them. On a side note, we should mention that Koreans seem more attracted to the iPhone, and previous reports showed that a number of 65,000 units have been sold during the first weekend of availability of the device.