Speculation intensifies over Chinese Iphone deal

WHAT AN Ikafuffle has erupted over a potential deal by Apple with one of the Chinese mobile operators.

First, it was reportedly a done deal, now there's been backtracking left right and centre. Revenue sharing is just one sticking point, it appears.

Remarks made to reporters at the GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Macau, by Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's chairman were taken to mean that the Chinese network operator might be close to striking an Iphonic deal with Apple. Instead, he was only admitting that his company had been talking to the .

Market watchers got even more excited when Li Zhengmao from China Unicom also was said he willing to hold talks with Apple to bring the Iphone to China, though he added that there had been no discussions so far.

China Mobile insiders have hinted that because of the company's sheer size, Apple might have to drop its insistence on revenue sharing. Other excuses for the Iphone not making an impending appearance in China include its lack of support for text messaging in Chinese.

More critically, the Chinese operators also take a dim view of SIM locking which prevents the handset being used on other networks. The Iphone is locked, of course.

Then there's the small issue that the Iphone is extremely expensive for the typical Chinese consumer. If Apple dropped the price sufficiently then it could create a very interesting gray market for Iphones.

But other remarks made by Wang Jianzhou also provide a clue. He told the FT that handset vendors either made "good mobile phones with simple music players or good music players with a bad phone."

Which category does the Iphone come into, the INQ wonders?

Anyway, just for the record China Mobile has approximately 350 million subscribers whilst China Unicom has around 155 million. µ