At the moment, all we know about Apple’s plans for the iPhone in China is that the handset should hit Asia sometime in 2008. But according to the CEO of China Mobile, Wang Jianzhou, the telecom provider is currently in talks with Apple to be the iPhone’s distributor in China.
China Mobile is the largest provider not just in China, but in the entire world, with almost 350 million subscribers. There is, however, a catch. Like the folks down under at Telstra, China Mobile isn’t thrilled about sharing its revenue with a handset maker.
“We still think we can maintain the operator-centric model because we have the customers, the end users,” Wang said.Oh, they all say that at the start, but then sooner or later they come around to Apple’s way of thinking. With 350 million subscribers, that’s a lot of potential yuan for Apple.
Another potential conflict is that China Mobile is a member of Google’s recently announced Open Handset Alliance, which will potentially be the iPhone’s strongest competition next year.
