Where have all the (unlocked) iPhones gone? - Chinese took them every one.

Stuart Corner
Monday, 18 February 2008 16:48

IT Industry - Strategy

Well, maybe not quite all. But around 10 percent of the official total of iPhone shipments, according to the Anty Zheng, content manager of In-Stat China, a market research firm. Writing on his company's web site Zheng said: "According to China Mobile, the biggest wireless carrier in China, there were about 400,000 cracked iPhones using its cellular network service at the end of 2007, representing one out of every 10 iPhone shipments announced officially by Apple."

He added: "The figure surprised us as it is fourfold of what we estimated before." And he suggested that this grey market bodes well for Apple if and when it chooses to officially launch the product in China.

"There are two reasons. Firstly, different from the US where the smartphone market is fairly limited, appealing primarily to business users, the smartphone market in China, though, is an entertainment-oriented individual consumer market.

"The main reasons that Chinese mobile users purchase smartphones include entertainment (such as music players, cameras and video) and to access mobile Internet applications (such as IM, e-book, and games). We believe the iPhone will be favoured by these consumers as it can better meet such demand. Secondly, high-end handset buyers significantly outnumber high-end mp3 player buyers. We estimate that 20 percent of handsets sold in China in 2007 cost more than 4,000 RMB ($US533). In another words, there are an estimated 28 million potential users for the iPhone in China."