China Unicom agrees to bring iPhone officially into the country

The Apple iPhone is probably one of the most powerful and probably most coveted phones out there. For some people, to live without it would be like trying to live without any food on their plate. But for the people in China, this is what they had to put up with until now!

Previously there was no official iPhone that was being brought into the China market. Luckily there is light at the end of the tunnel since China Unicom has confirmed with Apple to bring in the iPhone to the huge population in the country. This move will hopefully boost iPhone sales and bring it to the next level.

Even though this agreement is in the early stage with a lot of negotiation still going on, it is said that China Unicom will not share the revenue with Apple, as is done by most countries. Instead it will entrust a large sum volume at wholesale pricing before it will resell it to its subscribers with some funding. In addition, the Wi-Fi on the iPhone will be disabled as a tailored feature, because of regulation in the country.

There is one minor problem here that there are already quite a number of ‘unofficial’ iPhones that have been imported directly from overseas which are ‘regulation free’ and might potentially harm the sales especially considering when consumers can compare the full-feature iPhones to the official set provided by Telcos.

Pricing is not yet confirmed but some expect higher hardware pricing to cover the lower service plan rate. The iPhone will land in China hopefully this fall. It is expected that this push iPhone sales higher and gain even more market share.