Under a multiyear deal announced Friday, the iPhone is expected to go on sale in the fourth quarter, China Unicom executives said in Hong Kong. They declined to give financial details or reveal how much the iPhone would cost, saying only that the price would be “competitive.”
Unicom, one of three major state-owned carriers, would be the first Chinese phone company to formally support the iPhone, though unlocked iPhones brought in from other markets are in wide use in China.
The mobile market in China trails the United States, Japan and some others in financial size but it has 650 million mobile phone accounts and is seen as a major prize for foreign companies. However, Edward Yu, chief executive at Analysys International, a technology research firm in Beijing, said it remained to be seen whether the iPhone would appeal to “the mainstream China population.”
