Castrated iPhone had only 10 000 preorders in China — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{It’s a Unicom iPhone} Castrated iPhone had only 10 000 preorders in China

31 Oct 2009 at 02:46 GMT Timo Poropudas

Long waited official iPhone entry to China took place Friday. The interest for the Apple’s smartphone seems to almost non-existent. According to South China Morning Post there were only about 10 000 preorders for the phone that in Western cities has seen thousands lining up to buy the phone on the first day.

There are very good reasons why Chinese see the launch as a ho-hum affair.

In a research report, analyst Allan Ng of BOC International said mainland users had described as "castrated" an iPhone without the Wi-fi function, SCMP reports. Unicom has promised that the next batch of iPhones will have its Wi-fi intact.

Unicom has priced 32 gigabit top model at 8000 yuan without a subscription. Even the Apple store in Beijing sells it for one thousand less. Depending on the model, mainland grey-market prices for the iPhone range from 3,700 yuan to 5,700 yuan. These devices also have Wi-fi support.

The keenest interest in iPhone has been satisfied long time ago. It is estimated that the iPhone is the most popular smartphone in China with 1-2 million devices in operation. Kracked iPhone became available as soon as phone started selling in the US.

The pull of Chinese market is so strong on Apple that it has deviated from its Apple-only branding. The phone is being sold as Unicom iPhone.

Unicom is hoping that iPhone will help speed up its 3G sales. Over all the spread of 3G technology has been very slow in China starting from much delayed licenses and meager content offering to non-interest of mobile phone users.

The mainland has over 720 million mobile-telephone subscribers. China Mobile, the largest operator with over 500 million subscribers, has so far only 1.65 million 3G customers. China Unicom officially opened its 3G services on October first.