iPhone 3G on track to scale the Great Wall of China

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 29 June 2008 10:16

Your IT - Mobility

China is a land awash in Windows Mobile powered iPhone clones, and at last count had 500,000 unlocked iPhones too, with that number sure to have grown in the past few months. While it’s ironic that the country where real iPhones are manufactured still doesn’t have them officially available, the latest word from China Mobile is that the "biggest hurdle" so far been overcome, but it's not yet a sealed deal.

Now that the iPhone 3G has an Asian language input system for Chinese and Japanese, if not other Asian languages too, with the iPhone officially coming to Japan, it only makes sense that the iPhone 3G will officially come to the Middle Kingdom, too.

But initial talks at getting the original iPhone into China are said to have stalled because Apple wanted a share of the monthly revenues, and no Chinese carrier was willing to give Apple that much power over its income streams.

Given the billion-plus population of China, even a small percentage of iPhone users adds up to an enormous number of people, and thus is a market every Western company would love to have a piece of, even though many Chinese still don’t enjoy Western salaries or living standards.

Still, a growing if still small proportion do, with both wages and the standard of living slowly rising in China. It should come as no surprise to that the Chinese people want the same consumer goods and conveniences the West has enjoyed for decades.

China is also the counterfeit copy capital of the world, and with its astounding manufacturing prowess can churn out both high quality originals for Western companies and both high and low quality fakes with ease.

China is where the real iPhone is manufactured, after all, even if it is designed by Apple in California, and it’s also the source of a growing number of Windows Mobile powered iPhone clones, with the HiPhone being a well known example as this YouTube video demonstrates, among dozens of other iPhone clones being similarly demonstrated online. 

Now a Reuters report is quoting a China Mobile official as saying that a major impediment to official iPhone sales in China appears to have fallen, giving hope to Chinese consumers wanting the real thing that it’ll arrive in China this year.

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