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China Mobile Wants iPhone
By Paul Midler | March 3, 2008
China Mobile’s CEO, Wang Jianzhou, has just publicly expressed interest in the iPhone. Though formal talks have not yet been established, China Mobile has given the old winkity-wink to Apple through a leak to the press. Hey, but isn’t that what wire services are for?
“‘We have not yet officially begun talks with Apple over the iPhone problem,’ China Mobile Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou told reporters on the sidelines of an annual parliament advisory body meeting. ‘As long as our customers want this kind of product, we will keep all options open,’ said Wang.”
Back in January, if you’ll remember, China Mobile announced that it was officially breaking off talks with Apple, though it appeared never to have been in formal talks in the first place. Apple never made any statement about China Mobile’s comment, but rumor had it that the two companies had only held one formal meeting.
This latest bit of news is more than likely just posturing on China Mobile’s part. It dreams that Apple is going to come crawling to China Mobile to do a deal on their terms. Don’t do it Stevie! Stick to your guns, buddy!! My goodness, look who I’m talking about. If there’s anyone who knows how to play the China game, it’s old Steve Jobs.
As far as China Mobile is concerned, I don’t understand what all of the pussyfooting is about. You pick up a telephone, and you call Cupertino. Not convinced that revenue sharing works? Get Jobs himself to explain the business model. At this point, Apple doesn’t need China Mobile. The company promised Wall Street that it would ship 10,000,000 units in 2008, and they have announced (not leaked) that they are confident the target will be reached. How many of these will be brought into China through a back door? Who knows. Probably a lot.
Topics: China |
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:54 pm
It’s not going to happen soon anyway. China is not going to get into a revenue shareing model with Apple. If they do, it will be for a very small piece of the pie. Its still in Apple’s best interest to do the deal with CM. They have such a large customer base. They could take the 10 million and turn it into 20 million very fast.
April 17th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
i want to Purchase China Mobile its so nice Mobile THANKS …….!