China, the largest mobile phone market in the world, is getting a boost. Apple plans to sell the iPhone in Asia as early as next year, and China Mobile said on Tuesday that it is in talks with Apple to sell the iPhone in China as an exclusive operator. As the largest mobile phone network in China with more than 350 million subscribers, China Mobile is a key partner for Apple. "Our customers like this kind of fashionable product," Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile's CEO said in Macao.
However, Apple's previous exclusive deals with AT&T in the US and O2 in the UK have required the operators to share a portion of their iPhone subscription revenue with Apple, a business model that China Mobile feels uncomfortable with. Wang said that China Mobile will try to maintain the operator-orientated model as China Mobile has access to clients in China, not Apple. Moreover, another problem China Mobile faces is that it already belongs in Google's Open Handset Alliance, a platform designed for the development of Google's new mobile phone, which will be a clear competitor for Apple's iPhone.
Wang also attacked mobile phone-cum-music players, saying that contemporary designs are usually good phones but bad music players, or vice versa, with no middle ground (in his meaning, perhaps the iPhone is no exception). He mentions a specific defect with the iPhone: that users should be able download music freely on a mobile network instead of through a connection to a computer. This is an area that Google is looking into, that mobile phones should have a unique and powerful network that is comparable to that of computers. It appears that China Mobile's "talks" with Apple are not particular successful. Do you think that Apple will choose China Unicom, China Mobile's closest competitor in China, over China Mobile? Recall that Apple did not give into the demands of Verizon in the US when they too had the upperhand over AT&T as the largest network in the US.
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