Surprising basically no one, Apple CEO Tim Cook made time on his trip to China to meet Thursday with his company?s most critical non-partner: the chairman of China Mobile.?China Mobile is the largest carrier in the world?s largest market for mobile phones: the company counts 650 million subscribers. But while its competitors China Telecom and China Unicom have partnered with Apple to sell the iPhone, China Mobile remains a holdout.
For now, the two appear to just be talking, with no partnership deal announced.?A China Mobile spokesman told Reuters: ?In the morning, Apple?s CEO Tim Cook visited China Mobile?s headquarters. China Mobile?s Chairman Xi Guohua and Tim Cook discussed matters of cooperation.?
It?s not just a question of whether China Mobile wants to sell the iPhone. Apple would have to make the decision to make a specific variant of the iPhone that supports China Mobile?s unique flavor of 3G. As my colleague, Kevin Fitchard, has written, Apple did this early on with Verizon, a carrier with a customer base one-sixth the size of China Mobile?s. But it has so far held back from doing this for China Mobile; it?s not clear that?s a road Apple wants to go down, or if it would be able to make a device with decent profit margins.
China is crucial not only to Apple?s manufacturing capabilities, but to its future market share and profits: the region represents one of the fastest-growing markets for ?Apple mobile devices. As the company looks to expand its smartphone customer base, this carrier alone could help it make faster inroads into China.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jkOnTheRun/~3/hoh2yZHPkXw/story01.htm
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