Will China’s 300M Get iPhone Access?
11.15.07 - 01:47pm
After falling for a week straight Apple’s stock rebounded on Tuesday with its highest jump since July, rising $16.20 to $169.96 on news that the iPhone might be heading into China. Whether or not that will be anytime soon depends on the intense negotiations surrounding the iPhone, its revenue sharing, Apple and the biggest controller of the cell phone industry in China, China Mobile.
For Apple the China market is huge. China has more population than all of trans Europe combined and China Mobile boasts over 350 million users with 500 million expected in the next few years. Their next closest competition, China Unicom has a156 million.
The high difference in the cell phone users gives China Mobile far more power in revenue sharing negotiations than any other mobile company has had so far, and China’s policy is not one for sharing. This may mean that Apple has to give a little, something they are not known for either, thus talks could take quite a while and could end up with Apple going with the smaller company. Li Zhengmao, an executive director and vice president at China Unicom has said that his company is open to discussions with Apple although they are not in talks at the moment.
Apple would certainly love to sell 300 million iPhones over there and as the Chinese are fanatic about the iPhone they would possibly stand a chance. The Chinese have even given the iPhone a new name, “Ai-Feng”, which means “love crazy”.
One thing to be sure, should negotiations commence in a victory for Apple the stock will rise again making it a perfect time to buy while its still below $200.
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