Apple and China Mobile Reportedly Strike Deal to Bring iPhone to World's Largest Carrier
A report from CapitalVue is making the rounds today for its claims that Apple has finally struck a deal with China Mobile to a launch the iPhone on the world's largest mobile carrier. China Mobile currently has over 600 million customers.
Unfortunately, the sourcing on the rumor is somewhat uncertain, as the report points to "a company filing" picked up by Chinese-language site ccidcom.com. An automated translation of the article suggests, however, that the report came from the Associated Press, and we have been unable to locate such an article.
But if ccidcom.com's report is indeed true, it suggests that China Mobile will initially introduce the iPhone 4 in October, to be followed later by the iPhone 5 and future 4G LTE models based on the carrier's homegrown TD-LTE standard.
China Mobile has long expressed interest in offering the iPhone, and with Apple making a strong push into China the carrier certainly has to be a priority for Apple even with the technical hurdles of China Mobile's unique network standards. Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook was spotted at China Mobile's headquarters back in June, fueling speculation that a deal was being finalized. Just a few weeks later, a photo on an alleged China Mobile prototype iPhone 4 surfaced, further suggesting that a compatible device has indeed been in testing.
Apple currently offers the iPhone in China only through China Unicom, but has also been reported to be moving toward a deal with China Telecom, perhaps even more quickly than with China Mobile. Regardless, it seems that Apple is certainly making the Chinese market a priority and is working hard to get all of the country's top carriers on board for the iPhone as quickly as possible.
Popular Stories
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...
