- Tuesday, 24 November 2009
- INQ Mobile
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In the beginning, there was nothing -- which exploded - Terry Pratchett
Apple hasn't sold millions of Iphones to China
LAST WEEK it was revealed by the tame Apple press that the fruit themed outfit had managed to sign a deal to flog five million Iphones to the Chinese telecom Unicom.
The reports were extremely specific. Not only was the five million figure revealed, the price to Chinese users of $292.60 was also announced.
Now mobile operator China Unicom has denied that any deal is going ahead. It has admitted that it is in talks with Apple and has been for a while.
However it is not even close to a deal yet. In fact the talks are on again off again things that happen in both companies spare time.
An Apple spokesperson in China, Tiffany Yang, said if the outfit were close to signing a deal with China Unicom they had forgotten to tell the press office.
The source of the rumour was China Business News which claimed inside sources at China Unicom's Guangdong subsidiary said Unicom had purchased 5 million handsets for $1.5 billion.
Zhou Youmeng, deputy general manager of Guangdong Unicom, was quoted as saying that units might be on the market as soon as September.
It is not surprising that both outfits want the Iphone flogged in China, but what has gone wrong with the deal?
If the source of the leak was China Unicom then it could be trying to force Apple's hand on the issue of price. Apple will probably be wanting the $450 it gets from the US telcos which then sell the handsets on in subsidised deals.
China Unicom has apparently said no we are buying in bulk give us a better discount. Apple, not familiar with the concept of disagreement, said no.
By the Chinese leaking details of the deal, Apple might be forced to follow it. After all it would be adding $1.5 billion to the fruit themed retailers bottom line. If Apple denies that the deal took place then it has to explain to shareholders why it turned down that sort of money.
However it seems that the Chinese have found out that Steve Jobs is even more inscrutable and is not for turning. Now it has to go back to the negotiating table. µ
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After all it would be adding $1.5 billion to the fruit themed retailers bottom line
No it would be adding it to their top line. Assuming of course that the production cost to Apple is not US$0.00 in which case you are right and I apologise.
If you are going to write business news stories please be accurate.
Read this
"The source of the rumour was China Business News which claimed inside sources at China Unicom's Guangdong subsidiary said Unicom had purchased 5 million handsets for $1.5 billion."
This is just a clarification on what was reported. You could stand to get it right too
.