14 DAY TRIAL // Apple's iconic device, the iPhone, has been launched in China not too long ago, via the wireless carrier China Unicom, which is very confident in the selling power of the handset. According to the mobile phone operator, it managed to sell a number of 30,000 iPhones since launching the device on October 30, and it expects the phone to become the top-selling handset in China.
“We’re very confident about the market position of the iPhone,” Chang Xiaobing, China Unicom's chairman, stated recently, as Bloomberg reports. However, the news site also quotes IDC analyst Aloysius Choong, who recently stated that “Unicom must lower its prices if it wants to access the mass market for the iPhone.”
The 32GB iPhone 3GS has been launched in China at the end of the last month with a price set at 6,999 yuan ($1,024), with no contract agreement needed. The cost of the handset might rise even more if a two-year service contract is taken into consideration. Moreover, China Unicom seems confident on the performance of its iPhone offer, even if the device is available in the country through the gray market. China Unicom’s Chang has reportedly mentioned that the iPhone sales on the gray market “won’t be very significant.”
In China, the iPhone also faces great competition from handsets running other operating systems and available through other carriers. Moreover, it seems that there are phones much cheaper than the iPhone and they might appeal more to users from this point of view. Some of you might already know that Dell has just announced an Android-powered phone for China Mobile, while Motorola is rumored to plan making the same move shortly.
For what it's worth, the iPhone has been made available on the Chinese market only for about two weeks, which means that it still has to prove that it is capable of becoming the top-selling handset, as China Unicom claims. After all, we might hear that the carrier lowered iPhone's price tag, which would certainly boast its sales.