Wireless carriers China Telecom and China Unicom have begun promoting a rumored dual-SIM feature for new iPhones ahead of tomorrow's “Gather round” iPhone Xs event keynote.
Apple informed the top-three carriers in China on Wednesday it would not be offering the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus on September 19, leaving them caught off-guard, the New York Times reported. China is seen as the company's fastest growing market, so it's definitely an odd move, as China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom and customers in the area are eagerly awaiting the launch alongside the US and other countries worldwide.
China Telecom has made the claim in a Weibo post which was accompanied by a pair of images based on the familiar iPhone 6 renderings created by Tomas Moyano and Nicolàs Aichino and posted on Bēhance.
The post apparently advertises that an iPhone 6 flavor it plans on selling in the 1.33 billion people market will support all of China's cellular network standards.
Have a look at the images included after the break and meet us in comments.
Remember last week's Apple stock tailspin launched by the high price in China of the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s? Talk centered on no-contract versions of the new handsets costing more than $730 and how Apple should just keep dreaming about competing against inexpensive Android alternatives.
Forget all that, because China's No. 2 and No. 3 carriers are out with prices on subsidized iPhones and they are low. In fact, one market observer believes the deals could beat even the most aggressive American offers...
Yesterday, China's state-owned #3 carrier China Telecom supposedly inadvertently let slip that it will start selling Apple's upcoming iPhone 5S upgrade and the new mid-range iPhone 5C beginning September 20. The official pre-order page had even gone live briefly before the telco killed it.
I'm always doubtful of such "leaks" and tend to dismiss them as the perfectly legitimate PR stunts designed to drum up the excitement ahead of the launch. Be that as it may, Reuters on Friday confirmed with its sources that both China Telecom and China Unicom will indeed start taking preorders for the new iPhones as early as next week...
Just as Reuters suggested the major Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo could finally start carrying Apple's iconic smartphone this Fall, numerous reports that are now coming out of Asia highlight a seemingly unusual slip-up on the part of China Telecom, the third-largest mobile telecommunication provider in the People's Republic of China and tenth-largest carrier in the world.
The telco officially posted on the popular Chinese micro-blogging service Sina Weibo it'll be offering both the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C at launch. Heck, China Telecom had apparently been accepting pre-orders for both devices before it realized its "mistake" and took the post down...
It's believed that with strong competition from Samsung and other handset makers, the iPhone isn't as big of a draw for consumers as it once was. Some carriers have even stopped offering the phone, figuring it's no longer worth the hassle.
But ask providers like T-Mobile or China Telecom, and it's a completely different story. T-Mobile just posted its strongest consumer growth in 4 years last quarter on the back of its iPhone launch, and China Telecom is seeing similar results...
Tim Cook is back in China this week, according to a new report. The CEO is allegedly there on business, talking with the local carriers there about Apple's leveling iPhone sales in the country, as well as its upcoming iPhone launches.
Citing sources familiar with Cook's meetings, tech.ifeng.com claims that Cook met with China Telecom's senior leadership this week. The talks are supposedly over, but it is not yet known if the executive has returned to the US...
The iPhone 5 doesn't officially launch in China until the 14th, but sales of the handset are believed to already be well past half a million. Two of the countries largest carriers have been taking pre-orders for weeks now, and there appears to be a lot of interest.
China Unicom, for example, just announced that it has fielded more than 300,000 iPhone 5 reservations during its first week of pre-sales. And China Telecom is said to have similar figures. So needless to say, experts are planning for a big launch this Friday...
It's official: the iPad mini, iPad 4 and iPhone 5 are set to land on China's store shelves in December. The company announced today the 7.9-inch iPad mini and 9.7-inch iPad 4 with Retina display will arrive Friday, December 7, while the iPhone 5 drops a bit later - December 14. Only Wi-Fi iPad models are being released now as the cellular option has just cleared China regulatory hoops.
As of the Friday announcement, new iPads are available in 42 countries. The iPhone 5, which had some earlier supply glitches, has now rolled out in 47 countries...
Echoing earlier reports, folks in China can now officially get an iPhone 5 as China Telecom, the smallest of the country's three telecom carriers, started taking pre-orders for the device yesterday. According to a local report, a member of the customer service staff at the carrier's Beijing branch confirmed iPhone 5 pre-orders in mainland China.
The country's largest home appliance retailer, Suning, started taking pre-orders for the device earlier in the month. No word on availability of CDMA iPhone 5 models on Apple's long-time iPhone distributor, China Unicom...
The world is full of ironies. The latest comes from China, whose government frequently blocks most of Google's properties. Yet, inside the country, more than 90 percent of smartphones run Android. Not laughing is Apple, with just a single-digit share of this enormous market. Specifically, Android's share hit 90.1 percent mark in Q3 2012.
At the same time, iOS recorded just a 4.2 share, new research finds. Seemingly at the heart of problem for Apple: price. While the average price of an Android-powered handset is $179, the iPhone carries a $726 average price tag. The iPhone 5 can't hit Chinese shelves too soon...