Andre Yoskowitz
18 Nov 2009 14:40
At the Mobile Asia Congress event this week, China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou said his company is still in talks with Apple over bringing the iPhone smartphone to the nation, despite Apple's recent deal with China Unicom.
“China Mobile has continued negotiations with Apple to introduce the iPhone on China Mobile's network," he added. The China Unicom deal is non-exclusive.
The talks, which began in 2007 with the original iPhone model, are still held up by a few snags, likely feature-set and pricing. However, "we really are still in talks with Apple. In our negotiations in the past, we insisted on sticking to our conditions. We are still very sincere about completing this negotiation."
The Wi-Fi-crippled and overpriced version available from Unicom has seen underwhelming sales, with some reports placing sales at just 5000 in the first week. In comparison, the iPhone 3GS sold 1 million units in its first weekend in the US.